


Give Back My Heart Key

by ScooterSister



Series: Delight In Dystopia [2]
Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Angst and Humor, Disapproving Family, Eventual Smut, F/M, Feels, Forbidden Love, Friendship/Love, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-02-28 01:57:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2714717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScooterSister/pseuds/ScooterSister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three months after she is caught in a warehouse shootout involving some mobsters and the unholy trinity, Trevor pops back into Louise's life, much to her happiness, not so much to the happiness of others. And stuff goes wonky, natch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't plan this out they way I did the last one, just cranked out some chapters, so where oh where will I land on it? On my feet I hope. I love Louise so much more than I love my last OC (with apologies to that OC who is not sentient), so I wasn't ready to say bye to her yet. I hope you like it. You're good people, you deserve to like things.  
> *I do not own any of the Grand Theft Auto V characters. They belong to Rockstar.

Three months after Louise Robataille (nee Verland, formerly Bisby) narrowly escaped death at the hands of a bunch of generic goons with their fingers stuck in the Vinewood movie-making pie, she stood in front of a bathroom mirror in the opulent Vinewood home that she had once shared with her “late” husband, Greg Bisby.

It had taken as long for Agent Dave Norton of the FIB to plant an adequate body of evidence that Greg Bisby had gone missing in a squall off the coast while he was out on a leisurely afternoon ride in his sailboat. He told Louise that he wanted to leave the authorities with that impression beyond a shadow of a doubt. Because there had been a smattering of evidence pointing to Greg's involvement with both the FIB and the teamsters, it had taken some time. An agonizing amount of time for Louise, really.

Louise was in the process of gingerly lining her eyes with the mentholated chest-rub that she had found in the medicine cabinet. She didn't want to smear too much on as it might give her ruse away. She didn't really see why this was necessary anyway. She had done her due-diligence after the funeral, standing in the doorway of the chapel, letting every smarmy Vinewood sycophant type known to man clutch her hand and tell her that her husband had meant the world to them, that if she needed anything _blah blah blah. Insert platitude here._

But once the whole menagerie had arrived back at the house for the reception, or what she considered to be more akin to an after party or _grief orgy_ (that was Vinewood for you), Solomon had pulled her onto the veranda to inform her that she wasn't acting enough like a grieving wife. She needed to summon whatever acting skills she had picked up in her time working with Solomon and put on a show so as not to rouse any suspicions about the nature of the arrangement.

 _“What do you want me to smear his 'ashes' on my face and tear my hair out?”_ she had hissed at him before ceding the point to him and hastily making her way to the restroom to “get into character.” She had needed the break from these shallow fucks anyway.

Indeed, this was the first time that she had been back at this house in months, but her and Greg's impending divorce had not been public and for this reason, she needed to behave as though she had been living here the whole time even though she hated this place.

 _"Ow, fuck!”_ she said under her breath. The chest-rub was very stingy and now she had to blink ferociously to get the tears to come and flush out the bit of the goop that had gotten into her eye. She opened her eyes and turned to the bathroom door having gotten some of it out. She looked in the full length mirror hanging on the back of the door and tried to smooth down her dress.

She was by far the most modestly dressed woman here. She had chosen the most demure dress that she could find, a black number with a lace bodice and cap sleeves with a pencil skirt. She had opted to wear her black hair in side pony tail. When she had seen what the guests were wearing, particularly the females, she had started to feel like she was sticking out like a bookworm among a sea of ravers. She dabbed off the little streak of mascara that now graced the corner of her eye from her attempt to affect tears. The look wasn't half-bad, there was just a hint of redness under her eyes now. At least she looked like she _had_ been crying and that little stage effect was hopefully enough to inculcate the Vinewood elite with the belief that she was grieving.

She took a deep breath and opened the bathroom door before heading downstairs, back into the grief orgy. She made her way toward the little shrine that the funeral directors had constructed, though not without being stopped and sympathized at a few times. She graciously accepted each condolence before moving on.

When she got to the shrine, she examined it closely. There was a shiny urn in the center, surrounded by pictures. Louise was tempted to open the lid of the urn and take a peek at was was inside (after all, there was no body, so there could be no ashes) but thought better of it. The pictures included Greg sitting in a directors chair. One of their wedding photos was beside it. Louise was almost unrecognizable as was Greg. They had only been twenty when they wed in a small ceremony at the Fort Carson Community Rec-Hall. Louise and Greg looked genuinely happy. Another photo showed the two of them at a studio Christmas party, each with an arm around Solomon. After a moment, Louise settled on another photo, one that surely wasn't meant to be there.

It was a photo of Greg and Lacey Jonas in their bathing suits, arm in arm on a yacht. Louise's mouth dropped and she looked around, wondering if anyone else had seen the photo. She didn't need for anyone to tell her that Lacey had planted it there. Just as Louise was contemplating how to remove the photo from the motif, her mother, Rosemary stepped in next to her. She held her Pomeranian, Chauncey, in one hand and a martini in the other.

With one quick, smooth motion, Rosemary stepped to the shrine and, careful not to spill her drink, shoved the photograph off of the table. It landed with a satisfying crunch on the bamboo floor.

 _“Pity,”_ spat Rosemary sarcastically.

Louise snorted, but stifled it before she moved closer to Rosemary.

 _“Mama, please,”_ she said, still trying to stifle her laugh while looking around to see if anyone had seen her do it.

One of the caterers quickly brushed past them with a broom and dustpan, pardoning himself before pithily sweeping up the broken photo frame and jetting off toward the kitchen.

“Oh, please, Angelfish. I ain't about to let that little hussy humiliate my daughter in her hour of grief,” spat Rosemary, looking off to the corner.

Louise followed her gaze to where Lacey Jonas sat, surrounded by comforting arms, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, in the throes of what looked like a very satisfying griefgasm. Louise was really rolling with the orgy allusions today. It seemed appropriate (as long as she kept them to herself).

Louise then turned back to her mother and placed an arm around her shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. Rosemary looked up at her. Louise had to remember that her mother did indeed believe Greg to be dead. She wasn't in on the arrangement, which was good as Louise had begun to feel a little bit like there were too many people that were privy to that information.

Rosemary had been incredibly supportive since she had heard the news. At first Louise was leary of her mother's intentions, but after a couple of days with her, she was satisfied that Rose was indeed trying to do her motherly duty and be there for her daughter in an hour of need. Hell, she'd even done Louise a kindness and left Johnny at home.

It was a surprising turn of events, really. After the havoc that she and Trevor had brought into her mother's home in Fort Carson, she would have been surprised if she had ever heard her mother's name uttered again. But since Rosemary had shown up, they had had a long series of talks about the past, present, and future. Louise didn't want to be without her mother and Rosemary wanted to try and salvage a relationship with her only daughter, who was the only one of her two children who hadn't proven to be an absolute fuck up. They had a long way to go but, hey, they were making an effort.

“Angelfish, take Chauncey, I'm going to go and get you a drink. Heavens knows you of all people at this function could use one,” her mother said, handing the little dog to Louise and starting toward the dining area.

Louise smiled at her mother's back before she turned Chauncey on his back in her arms. He had warmed to her in the past couple of days, which was surprising as Louise had been certain that dogs could smell disdain. She was by no means a small dog enthusiast, still, but she could _kind of_ see the little dog's appeal. She cradled him in her arms like a baby and scratched his tummy while he licked her chin.

“Louise,” someone called to her in a familiar voice.

She turned around to see a face that she had missed sorely. It was Michael, wearing his Sunday best. He was surrounded by a small group of people whom Louise guessed to be his family. An attractive brunette woman and two people at least a half a decade younger than herself. The kids both had their attentions turned to their mobile devices. Michael stopped in front of her. She tried not to beam at him, but it was hard. She had missed him so. He smiled weakly back at her, obviously trying to keep the nature of their acquaintance between the two of them.

“Hi, Michael,” she said softly.

“Hey, kid,” he said, letting his smile grow a little bit. He looked down at the dog in her arms. “Don't tell me you've crossed over to the canine dark side,” he quipped.

Louise looked down at the dog in her arms and laughed.

“God, no. This is my mother's dog. She doesn't leave home without him,” she said.

She looked past Michael at the woman next to him. She was a little taller than her husband.

“Oh,” Michael said. He turned and gently grabbed the woman by her arm. “Amanda, this is Louise. Louise, Amanda.”

Louise put Chauncey down. He promptly hid behind her. He wasn't used to being around this many people. Louise extended her hand to Amanda, who smiled graciously but thinly at her before her face straightened. She shook her hand.

“I'm so sorry about your loss, Louise.”

Louise stole a quick glance at Michael before she looked back at Amanda.

“I appreciate that. I'm sorry we couldn't meet under better circumstances,” she said, smiling nervously and rubbing the back of her neck.

“Jimmy, Tracey,” Amanda called back toward the kids. “Come meet Louise.”

Tracey, an attractive young blonde who looked right at home among the crowd here, flashed Louise a smile before something behind Louise caught her attention and her eyes got wide.

“Is that Poppy _Montgomery,”_ she whispered.

Jimmy looked up at Louise and extended his hand, which Louise took.

“I'm sorry about your loss,” he said in a husky voice. “But, ya know, you're still young and hot, so I'm sure you won't have any trouble finding another husband.”

Louise raised her eyebrows.

 _“Jimmy,”_ hissed Amanda while Michael just rolled his eyes.

Jimmy waved at his mother dismissively before turning back to his phone and sauntering off. Tracey had disappeared altogether.

“I am so _sorry,”_ pleaded Amanda.

Louise quickly put up her hand and shook her head to assure her that she hadn't taken offense.

“No worries. That's not the worst thing I've heard all day,” Louise said.

It was then that Rosemary returned, shoving a martini glass into Louise's hand.

"Angelfish, I am happy to report that these _people,"_ she sneered glancing around the room,"haven't cleaned the bar out. There's still plenty of Vermouth back there and I suspect that it's because Greg's little malcontent friends are far more inclined to snort their feelings than to drown them." She sighed, kissed Louise on the cheek and looked at her adoringly, stroking her hair. "I am so glad this godforsaken city ain't turned my baby into a coke whore," she said proudly.

Louise stared at the floor before looking up at Michael and Amanda, who wore matching, confounded expressions. She took a deep swig of her drink.

"Mama, I'd like for you to meet Michael and Amanda..."

 

\------------------------

 

Louise and Michael sat out on the back patio in lawn chairs. He sipped a whiskey while Louise was working on her second martini of the night. They were alone in the little corner of the patio where they were taking refuge from the worsening conditions of the grief orgy inside. Amanda and Rosemary had hit it off and were now sitting upstairs on the terrace sharing a bottle of wine.

“So, how you holdin' up, kid?” Michael asked after a considerable period of silence.

Louise shook her head at the question. Michael knew as well as she did that this was all a sham.

“I'm fine,” she said tersely.

“No, no. I'm not talking about this,” he said gesturing toward the house. “I mean...You know, are you coping with the...” he lowered his voice before continuing, “the trauma? I mean, everything that happened...”

Louise sighed and sat up in her lawn chair, turning to face him. She looked up to the terrace to make sure that their people weren't listening.

“Nobody I care about died. Isabelle got out clean, though she never wants to speak to me again...Can't blame her. Shit, even Willard made a full recovery,” she shrugged. “I mean, sure, I could have gone my entire life without having to see a psychotic gangster flip shit over a fuckin' movie but, all things considered, I'm okay.”

Michael stared at her pensively before his face softened. He seemed satisfied with her answer.

Louise cleared her throat.

“How are the other two?” she asked trying to sound flip.

“Oh, yeah, Franklin wanted to be here, but he figured it was best to stay away for the time being. I mean, I have ties to the studio so it ain't weird for me to show up, but he didn't want to draw any attention to this whole thing, you know? He still wants to see you, though. Told me to give him your number.”

Louise smiled, partly because she had missed Franklin and was happy that he wasn't dropping her like a hot potato, but also because she was kind of still wrapping her head around how fucked up it was that she had gotten so cozy with the guys that had abducted her. She inhaled before she asked her next question.

“Trevor?”

Michael snickered.

“Trevor's Trevor.” He shrugged. “He's doin' alright. I talked to him a few days ago, but I wasn't able to keep him on the phone long. He said he had plans to make. Probably making another gun-run or something.”

Louise sat back, trying not to let Michael see that she was a little wounded. Trevor hadn't tried to contact her and she was sure that if he had been at the service, he would have made himself known. Louise decided to change the subject.

“I really like your wife,” she said suddenly.

Michael glanced up at the terrace to where Amanda and Rosemary were giggling and whispering like middle schoolers. He smiled at Louise.

“Yeah, she's alright,” he said coyly.

“No, seriously. She's really nice. You kinda made her sound shallow and insufferable,” she shot at him.

“Oh, come on, no I didn't.”

“You so did,” Louise taunted. “You told me she liked shopping and yoga. You didn't say anything about her putting crazy old Southern belles at ease amongst a bunch of West coast industry-type wierdos. That's practically a public service.”

Michael chuckled.

“Hey, your old lady's alright. Very _genteel.”_

Louise fanned herself mockingly, summoning Scarlett O'Hara, and the two shared a laugh before Amanda called from the terrace.

“Michael, I have a yoga appointment in the morning, we need to get going!”

Michael shot Louise an _I told you so_ look. Louise smiled and rolled her eyes.

“Coming, babe!” he said over his shoulder.

“Rosemary's going to do yoga with me!” chirped Amanda.

He and Louise stood up simultaneously. Louise glanced up at the terrace and leaned in toward Michael.

“So, realistically, what do I have to do to get you to shoot video of Rose doing yoga and send it to me?” she laughed.

He responded in kind.

“Just be your sweet self, kid. Christ knows I owe you one.”

They smiled at each other.

“Stay in touch, yeah?” Louise said.

Michael cocked his head at her and smiled, touching her on the cheek.

“Of course I will,” he said.

Louise looked him up and down. She believed him. Michael turned on his heel and strode toward the house, disappearing inside.

 

\---------------------------

 

Louise had hoped that, once people had gotten their fill of vicarious grief that they would start to trickle out a little bit. Her mother had already fallen asleep in one of the guest rooms having had one too many martinis and Louise's buzz was starting to wear off.

She had spent the last hour since Michael left hanging out with Solomon, who, well...just couldn't help himself. He too had found the martini bar and he kept sneaking gropes of Louise's ass here and there in between his stories about Greg, stories that he delivered to a captive audience of schmoozers.

Louise went back to her little patio sanctuary. She took her shoes off and hiked her skirt up, dipping her feet in the pool, kicking up some water. She allowed herself to be hypnotized by the ripples in the water for a while, trying to digest the fact that she had just spent the day fake-mourning her not-dead husband who, by default, was no longer her husband. It was all a bit much to take in.

She was so engrossed in her own thoughts that she didn't see the shadow fall on the water, nor did she hear the foot steps. Only when he crouched down and whispered in her ear was her concentration broken.

“Mmm, Lou, you really should be in mourning more often,” came the voice. Her eyes shot up to where he was crouched at her side: Trevor Philips, looking her up and down with that lecherous gaze in his eye. “Grief is _very_ fetching on you...”

She didn't know if she wanted to kiss him or punch him in the face just then.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louise likes sex. Or I like sex. Or I guess I'm a sucker for some good mushy lovin' or sentimental mushy lovin' dreck. Please don't hate me 'cause I love you.

Trevor and Louise drove deeper into the Vinewood Hills, having stolen off clandestinely after Louise had checked in on her mother and found her purse. The truck bumped and sidled along the dirt road until they came to a stop in a remote patch of greenery overlooking the city. He got out of the truck and walked around to the back, pulling open the tailgate and taking a seat on it. Louise followed suit.

Trevor would have liked to have gone farther off-road but he didn't want to attract any attention to himself and Louise. These hills were inhabited by cop-callers and he wanted her alone. He would take her joyriding another time.

He leaned back on the heels of his hands before stealing a glance at Louise. She was smiling faintly, looking out toward the skyline. Eventually, though she turned to him, beaming.

_Dammit, he'd missed her smile._

“So, Lou,” he started. “Now that I have you alone-”

“Why did it take so long for you to show up?” she asked, cutting him off.

The question took him by surprise.

“Come again?”

She rolled her eyes at him as wide smile faded into a wry one.

“You heard me. I haven't heard from you in months. I mean, I practically... _sexted_ you for fuck sake. You had my number, why didn't you call me?”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a minute, frustrated, and when he opened them again, he saw that she was pouting at him now. Incidentally, he could also see that she was fucking with him in that very Louise way. In that way that she was trying to get real answers out of him without setting him off. Trevor adjusted himself in his seat and sighed.

“I told you, I needed to make sure that the coast was clear. Shit, Lou, you barely made it out of that warehouse with your life, I wasn't about to attract another herd of assholes to your position.”

Louise folded her arms in front of her and turned forward, away from him.

“I don't believe you.”

He gaped at her.

“And just why in the fuck _not?”_ he spat.

He saw her glance at him through the side of her eye, but she was still pouting. She didn't answer. _Fine. She wanted to play like that._

“Well, ya know, Lou, I didn't get any calls from you between that little exchange and now. You could have just as easily picked up the phone, ya know...” he clucked at her.

She flinched. She held her face like that for a minute, all scrunched up and he had to suppress a smile at how cute it was.

“Because I wanted for you to make the next move,” she answered quietly. “I wanted to find out if you were still interested after I _threw_ myself at you or if you're just one of those fuckers that likes the chase.”

Trevor chuckled. She was being so juvenile. It was adorable. He reached over and stroked her cheek and she looked over at him.

“If you're done having your little shit-fit, Louise, I should very much like to get reacquainted.” She narrowed her eyes at him. He shrugged at her defensively. “So fuckin' what if I didn't call you? I'm here _now._ Besides, I...I felt like calling you would make it harder to stay away, alright?” he admitted.

Louise looked at him blankly. He could tell that she was picking apart his words and his expression, trying to tell if he was full of shit or not. That was one of their, _ahem,_ games. Neither one of them was a bullshitter, but for some reason, they were never quite able to get over _that_ plateau. He decided that he wasn't in the mood to play that game right now, though. So instead, he started eyeing her up and down, taking her in. He really had missed her and right now she looked good enough to devour. He sighed.

“You know, I wasn't fuckin' around when I said that the bereaved look is very, very hot on you, Lou,” he clucked. “Not to be morbid, but...”

Louise snickered.

 _“You_ are qualifying that statement? What, like you're not into morbid shit? _Please,”_ she said, opening her purse.

Trevor glared at her.

“What, you tryin' to hurt my feelings now, Lou, is that what this is about?” he said with mock-hurt in his voice.

She ignored him.

“I made you something,” she said, rifling through her purse.

Finally, she pulled something out, something small. She dangled it at him. He reached for it, but she playfully retracted her hand. He reached for it again, shoving her backward with his body. She scooted backward with her feet, farther onto the truck bed. She was laying recumbent with her back against the wheel-well now while he leaned over her on one elbow. She giggled and looked up at him before handing him what she had made him. He took it from her and looked at it.

It was a key chain, or rather, an illustration that she had encased in shellac and attached to a keychain. It was an illustration of him in an airplane, smiling maniacally. It was crazy detailed for how small it was. He turned it over. On the back she had illustrated her shortening of his name, Trev, adding all manner of tiny details to it, like fire and smoke and parachute men. For good measure, she had also included a maple leaf, which he thought was a nice touch give he knew she wasn't being mean-spirited about his country of origin. _So his accent hadn't escaped her._ It was the nicest thing that anyone had ever given him. He looked at her and smiled faintly.

“Nobody's ever given me anything like this before. That they made themselves, I mean.”

“Do you like it?” she inquired.

He looked into her eyes now, still leaning over her.

“I fuckin' love it,” he said quietly, looking over it one more time before shoving it into his pocket.

She beamed up at him. _Such a pretty fuckin' smile. With that one canine that's just a little sharper than the other one._

“I missed you,” she said after a moment.

 _“I don't believe you,”_ he replied, in a whiny, high-pitched voice, obviously mocking her prior statement.

Louise giggled and swatted him on the arm, not so gently. She let her eyes fall over him for a minute before she leaned up and kissed him. Slow and sweet, open mouth, no tongue. _He had really, really missed her mouth._ She broke the kiss and leaned back again with a flash of mischief in her eye.

“Do you believe me now?” she asked.

He sighed.

“Yeah, I think I'm starting to wrap my head around the possibility,” he said, grinning. “I might need more convincing, though...”

Louise chuckled low with her mouth closed. She breathed hard out her nose.

“So, what have you been doing with yourself in the time we've been apart?”

_Ugh, less talky, more touchy..._

“Nothin'.”

Louise glowered at him. He rolled his eyes and gave an exaggerated sigh.

“Makin' plane runs between here and Mexico.”

“Ooh...”

Trevor hesitated for a minute before he shot her a smile.

“Oh, _yeah,_ that's right,” he purred. “You like your Trevy in a cockpit, don'tcha?”

She smiled up at him faintly.

“I like my Trevy any place.”

_Goddammit. He was trying to seduce her and she was sinking all of his attempts to get her all hot and bothered. Did she have to be so fuckin' sweet about it?_

“Okay...What else?” she asked.

“Catching up on Impotent Rage,” he answered flatly.

“Yeah?”

“Dreaming about _you_ every fuckin' night,” he said suddenly without thinking.

That shut her up for a second.

“I was dreaming about you, too,” she said quietly.

Trevor was intrigued now. _Perhaps this was his in? A good place to segue into sex?_

“Oh, yeah?” he purred at her.

“Yeah,” she said, staring into his eyes. But then she broke the stare and looked past him, contemplative all of a sudden. “The weirdest one was this one I had where I was walking down the Senora Freeway and all of a sudden I saw you walking toward me and I got all excited and ran up to you but when I got there, I saw that you were all covered in bugs and I was all 'Hey, Trev, you know you're covered in bugs, right?' and you go 'Huh?' So I reach over to pull a bug off of you to show you, but when I do, you turn into a giant humanoid cockroach and start chasing me down the freeway. And then, as I'm running I hear you calling my name...'Lou, Lou!' So I turn around but it's not you, it's that weird guy that wore that suit covered in question marks in those shitty commercials from the '90's...Remember that guy? And he keeps calling to me in your voice...” she said trailing off.

She kept looking past him, biting her thumb nail and squinting like she was deep in thought. Then her eyes drifted back over to his face before they widened.

Trevor didn't quite know how or why, but Louise's crazy little tangential recap of her dream quest had turned him on. It might have been because she had been so candid, so comfortable sharing her fucking weirdness with him, but he had grown hard. Still, he was a little caught off guard by it and he must have been staring at her in a way that she didn't quite like. So she piped up again, likely hoping to divert the conversation elsewhere.

“What about you?” she asked tentatively.

Trevor shrugged.

“I just had dreams about us scrogging...”

“Oh...”

“You were riding a zebra in one of 'em...”

She shot him a look that fell somewhere between surprised and concerned before she started giggling again, low at first, but it quickly reached a cackle before she finally sighed and looked up at him. She reached down and grabbed his hand, interlocking her fingers with his.

“I, uh,”...he started. “I missed you, too, Louise.”

If the universe had decided to strike him down right then, he would have liked to go out looking at her. She stared up at him as though she fucking adored him or something, like he really was the only one that would do. Fucking _nobody_ looked at him like that. She put her hand on the back of his neck and pulled his face into hers.

He was already worked up, so it didn't take long for the kiss to get fevered. More tongues, more hands, tangled limbs. She broke this kiss only briefly to pull her hair tie out and he quickly took advantage, running his hands through her hair as he pulled her over on top of him. He soon began running his hands up and down her body, which must have turned her on because she was moaning softly into him, which only made him hotter, more eager.

She straddled him now, looking down at him and panting lightly. She put her hands over his as he pawed at her body and she didn't pull them away when he chanced a feel of her tits, instead letting out a barely audible shudder and grinding into him. The combination of those things made him feel like he might blow his wad right then and there. She pulled his body up toward hers, cupping his face in her hands and kissing him hard as he grabbed her ass with one hand and groped around her back looking for a zipper with the other.

Just then, his phone rang. Both of them ignored it this time, letting it chime at them while they snogged. It didn't stop after a few minutes, but they just kept ignoring it. _Fuck it._ The fucking thing had interrupted them last time they had been this close to getting it on, and Trevor wasn't about to let a fucking phone call cock block him a second time. Louise was starting to unbutton Trevor's flannel shirt when...

A dog barked nearby. A familiar-sounding dog. A mean-sounding dog. A dog that belonged to...

“Ay, Trevor! I _see_ you, motherfucker!” came a familiar voice.

Louise froze. Trevor looked over her shoulder. Sure as shit, young Franklin Clinton was jogging over to them with Chop in tow. He got to the side of the truck and stared hard at the two of them. He was panting a little bit from his jog as his gaze flitted between Trevor and Louise. He laughed humorlessly and shook his head.

“I was _hopin'_ my fuckin' eyes were playin' tricks on me,” he spat.

Louise stole a glance at Trevor before she crawled out of his lap. She cleared her throat.

“Hi, Franklin,” she said sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Oh, _hi_ Louise,” he responded sarcastically. “Girl, you high or what?”

Louise narrowed her eyes and gaped at him.

“Uh, _rudeness!_ No I am not high, Franklin, Jesus.” she spat back. “Nice to see you, too.”

One thing that Trevor loved about her was how she could go from shrinking violet to fire-breathing tigress in no time flat.

Trevor adjusted himself in his jeans before he scooted toward the tailgate, hopping out of the truck.

“How the fuck long has this been goin' on?” Franklin said angrily, addressing Trevor now.

“Psh...Seven minutes, give or take,” Trevor said, straining against his hard-on.

Franklin squared his body with Trevor's, looking down his nose.

“Man, _fuck_ you. You know what I meant.”

“Oh, for fuck sake, Frank,” Trevor said, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

He had half a mind to punch him just then.

“Franklin,” started Louise, both men turning to her now. She pursed her lips and exhaled, averting her eyes before squeezing them shut, as if to brace herself. “It started back...you know...when we were over Chumash way.”

_“What!”_

Trevor was tired of this shit.

“Franklin! What is the big fuckin' deal?” he spat.

“The big fuckin' deal is I don't think Michael would appreciate-”

“Ergh, fuck Michael!” screamed Trevor. “What the fuck does that asshole have to do with this?”

Franklin was pacing now. Chop hopped up into the truck and promptly starting lavishing Louise with dog kisses. She welcomed the distraction, cooing at him and scratching his neck.

“You didn't meet Louise at a fuckin' single's club, man. We kidnapped her, Trevor. And then we saved her from getting her brains blown out by a bunch of psychotic motherfuckers!”

“You mind not talking about me like I'm not here?” Louise interjected, but Franklin ignored her.

“You think Michael ain't got anything to say about that?” he said. “Man, it's Patricia Madrazo all over again!”

Louise shot Trevor a look.

“Who's Patricia Madrazo?”

“Nobody...” Trevor said.

Franklin turned to Louise, who glared at him while she continued to scratch the dog's chest.

“And _you._ What, you got a touch of the fuckin' Stockholm Syndrome or somethin'?”

“No, I don't have fucking Stockholm Syndrome. I'm quite lucid, thank you,” she deadpanned.

“Could'a fuckin' fooled me,” Franklin muttered. “I mean _shit,_ Louise-”

“Look,” she said. She stopped for a moment considering what she would say next. “I know it's...I know how it looks, okay? I...” She threw her head back and buried her face in her hands for a moment before looking at Franklin again. “I thought that things would change, ya know? I thought that after three months of no contact, things would simmer, but they didn't.” She glanced at Trevor. “No, the time apart just made me miss him more. So...obviously, it wasn't just the close-quarters and the stress and the psychotic motherfuckers...” She squeezed the bridge of her nose. “I have...feelings for Trevor.”

Trevor looked at her as his heart jumped in his chest. He hadn't heard her say anything like that, not out loud.

 _“Feelings?”_ repeated Franklin incredulously.

Louise shot him a fiery glare.

“Yeah, fucking feelings, warm and fuzzies, whatever the fuck you wanna call 'em. And I'm acting on them because I am a grown-ass woman.”

Trevor could feel himself grinning as he rocked back on his heels. Sure, she hadn't sound completely resolute when she had said it, but that was probably because she had had to resort to using the florid language that she hated in order to tactfully convey the truth to Franklin. Trevor knew that.

Franklin looked as though he had just gotten hit in the head with a two-by-four. He was dazed and shaking his head.

“Look...Y'all obviously got some shit to figure out. And so do I. I need to sleep on this one...I'll talk to y'all later...”

He began walking off, calling to Chop behind his shoulder. Chop held his position, content in Louise's company before Franklin called him again, more forcefully this time, which did the trick. Louise looked up at Trevor, who was still grinning. She shook her head at him lazily.

“I think I need to head back to the house...”

 

\--------------------------

 

They sat in the driveway of the Spanish-style home where Trevor had picked Louise up. The ride back, quick as it was, was also painfully quiet.

“Did you mean what you said back there-”

“Who's Patricia Madrazo?” Louise interrupted.

She looked at him expectantly. Trevor sighed and rolled his eyes.

“She was this lady that was married to this guy that ripped me and Michael off, so I kidnapped her pending payment and it turned out that we really liked each other and we spent a lot of time together until I had to take her back to her husband, okay?”

Louise guffawed.

“So, what is this like...one of your elaborate kinks or something?”

Trevor gaped.

“No,” he said defensively. _“Fuck...”_

Louise laughed humorlessly. Trevor grabbed her wrist. He looked at her pleadingly.

“Hey,” he said firmly. She looked over at him, reluctantly. “That thing you said back there? About things...simmering?”

“Yeah?” she asked flatly.

“I thought about her less and less every day that passed. I mean, it's not like I _never_ think about her, but it doesn't hurt like it did. That ain't what happened with you, cupcake. With you it...sucked _worse_ as time went on.”

Louise looked him over as though she was sizing him up for the first time when, in fact, for the second time that night, she was studying his face, trying to decide if he was lying. That same fucking game. Over and over with this game. Except this time he couldn't really blame her because, while he hadn't lied, he had certainly omitted that bit of information. She turned to him now.

“Franklin's going to tell Michael what he saw,” she said.

“I could give a fuck,” he said quietly. “Will you just fucking...come here? Please?” he pleaded softly.

Louise twisted her mouth to the side before she crawled into his lap and put her arms around his neck. She frowned and studied Trevor silently for a moment.

"Do you think that the fact that every time we're about to...we get interrupted...Do you think that's like...a _sign?”_

“Yeah, a fuckin' sign that I need new friends.”

She didn't smile. She was being serious.

“No,” he said tersely. “The four horseman of the apocalypse could be jamming fiery swords up my ass and I would still want for you to fuck my brains out.” She smiled slow and crooked. “Speaking of...” he tried.

“I need to go inside and make sure that my mother hasn't asphyxiated,” she said staring at him wearily. “Besides,” she sighed, “I'm too old to be having sex in cars.”

Trevor snorted. _He_ didn't feel too old and he was _substantially older._

“But,” she continued, “I've decided that I'm not mad at you for having a past because that would insane, so...I want to see you again, sooner rather than later.”

Trevor smiled at her. Sold. He locked eyes with her and just stared for a long minute.

“Did you mean that? What you said to Franklin?”

Her eyes softened.

“Of course I meant it. What, I didn't make it obvious?”

Trevor stirred. He couldn't tell if she was _trying_ to embarrass him or not.

“So...”

“So tomorrow or the next day, when you're done raising hell, get at me and you can tell me more about your zebra dream,” she said.

“It'd be better if I showed you...”

Louise let a throaty chuckle escape her throat before she grabbed his face kissed him hard on the cheek and got out of the truck.

Trevor tossed her purse to her before watching her walk inside.

When she was gone, he leaned his head back and sighed, thinking now.

She wasn't wrong about Michael. Yeah, he'd tried to play it cool and, for the most part, he meant it when he said he could give a fuck. But his slippery fuck of a best friend seemed perpetually bent on inhibiting Trevor from having anything that didn't confirm his biases. Best case scenario was that Michael would just try to kill him _before_ he tried poisoning Louise against him or whatever the fuck his preferred method of sabotage was these days...Trevor shook the thought away and started his truck and headed for the club to sleep in his dark, lonely office.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That house of cheap, novelty playing cards had to come down sometime, right?

Louise stood in front of her mother in the kitchen of the Vinewood Hills house, still wearing her black dress, her hair now substantially more disheveled. She was doing what she had been doing for as long as she could remember in her twenty seven years on this earth, staring Rosemary down, refusing to cede the victory of the staring contest to her mother. As expert as she had become at it, though, her mother's spooky powers of intuition were searing into her with the heat and depth of that old Southern belle's stare. She drummed her fingers on the marble counter top, waiting for her mother to say something. Rosemary had started in on Louise almost immediately after she walked in the door. _Fucking mothers and their intuition._

Amanda was there, too, watching as intently as if she had been watching a riveting nature documentary on some exotic species. _Here we see the middle-aged former cotillion queen grilling her adult daughter about her whereabouts the previous night_. She was clad in yoga pants and a pink tank top. She had come to pick up Rosemary for her initiation into the Los Santos pass time of faux-spiritual discipline.

“I can smell him on you, Louise,” growled Rosemary.

Louise knew that her mother wasn't being euphemistic by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, growing up in the old hamlet of Savannah, a place that was overgrown with old money and half-buried secrets, had imbued Rose with sight beyond sight. Or smell beyond smell. It was a folksy aspect of her mother that had always intrigued and terrified Louise. More than that, it was a big part of the reason that Louise had never been able to fully commit to hating her mother. Seeing beyond the surface of the world was bound to make anyone a little crazy.

“Mama, you're hungover and you're blood sugar is low. Let me make you something to eat to take with you on the ride to your, er, thing,” Louise said defensively, gesturing at Amanda.

Rosemary's stare became harder, inducing a hard gulp in Louise. She hoped that neither one of the other women had noticed. Rosemary stuck her finger in Louise's face, which made Louise jump a little bit.

“Don't you dare patronize me, Angelfish. I know that you were with that, that _thing_ that nearly killed your brother. I'll remember his stench for as long as I live, little girl.”

Louise inhaled deeply. She looked over at Amanda, who didn't seem frightened by or uncomfortable with the exchange before her so much as utterly rapt.

“Mama...I'm an adult, not a teenager, and where I was last night and what I was doing is none of your concern. But I will state for the record, that I didn't do anything unseemly. I just needed to get out of this house, okay?” Louise said, trying to sound firm, though she could hear the falter in her own voice.

Rosemary was about the only person that Louise had no problem lying to and for good reason. Rosemary's demeanor changed suddenly, from that of an old fortune teller to that of an overbearing, but otherwise ordinary mother.

“How can you even think of keeping company with a man so soon after you buried your husband, much less a _creature_ like him?”

Louise shook her head.

“Mother, please,” Louise said, forgetting now that Amanda was there and that she was now airing her dirty laundry in front of her. “Greg and I had been separated for months. I don't know why it comes as such a shock to you that I might have other...er...” Well, she didn't quite know how to classify Trevor. “And you're wrong, alright? I wasn't with him, I went to go see a coworker.”

The lies were shameless, but Rosemary had Louise's head in a vice. Rosemary folder her arms in front of her chest and studied her daughter.

“Besides,” Louise continued, “there's not a single human male on this planet that you would approve of me holding with, which is kind of surprising considering how much your folks hated daddy...You'd think that of all people, _you_ would be sensitive to that.”

Rosemary narrowed her eyes at Louise.

“Oh, for the love of God, Louise,” Rosemary drawled, throwing up her hands. “You know that my mother and father disapproved of Jeb because his mother, God rest her soul, was Muscogee. That was bigotry, pure and unadulterated, but this?” Rosemary took Louise's face in her hands. “This is me looking out for my little girl.”

Louise reached up and covered Rosemary's hands with her own and looked deep into her eyes. She had craved her mother's tenderness for so long and, while she didn't want to squander it, she had other things, things that were of equal or greater importance and she wanted those, too. Louise had never been a black and white thinker, she'd always lingered in the gray, and as far as the merits of lying to one's mother went...right now, Louise was holding firmly in the gray. It was something that her father had taught her to do.

“I'm being a good girl, Mama. Really, I am. Could you just...Could you just believe me for once?” she pleaded.

Rosemary's eyes softened. “I hope you know what you're doin' Angelfish.”

“I'm doing my best. I'm trying to be myself.”

Rosemary sighed and kissed Louise on the cheek.

“Alright,” she said tentatively, dropping her hands.

“Go have fun, Mama.”

 

................

 

What was supposed to be a morning journey into yogic discipline had devolved quickly into a mimosa party between Amanda, Rosemary, and Amanda's new female yoga instructor (as per Michael and Amanda's new marriage contract). Michael had hung back for a while until he came within earshot of the discussion on the patio. He didn't really have fuck all to do that day and Rosemary fascinated him to no end with her bizarre brand of charm.

He would be remiss not to admit to himself that much of what fascinated him about Rosemary was that he had grown to know Louise enough to where he couldn't quite figure out how she had turned out the way she did given the fact that this loquacious, no-bullshit woman had given birth to her. It wasn't that he had anything against Rosemary, but Louise was decidedly more warm and relatable.

Michael hovered in the doorway to the patio intermittently checking the clock to see if it was late enough to pour himself a glass of whiskey. Of course, the world of day drinking was more nuanced for his wife and another stipulation of the marriage contract held that he would not imbibe that delicious amber liquor before noon time. The women were mostly giggling and gossiping before the new yoga instructor politely excused herself to get to her next appointment. _Yeah, I just paid you to sit on my patio and drink mimosas,_ he thought bitterly as she strode past him to the front door.

11:58 finally hit and he decided that was good enough. He walked to the cabinet and pulled out his whiskey and poured himself a glass. He walked out to the patio and sat down in a lawn chair where he could still hear the women talking. He half-listened for a few minutes while they wrapped up whatever was on the table for discussion before moving on to something else.

“So, Rose, I hope this isn't an inappropriate question, but about your discussion with Louise...”

“Ugh. No, honey it's not inappropriate at all. Matter of fact, if your daughter's coming up on the heels of proper adulthood, now's as good a time as any for you to learn the ins and outs of raising your adult children,” she sniped, taking another sip of her drink.

“I can use all the insight I can get,” Amanda laughed.

“Well...It was a while back, months ago, that Louise showed up on my front porch at dusk, completely out of the blue. She didn't call or anything before she came, just showed up. And let me tell you something, honey, that is not her wont...”

Michael was listening closely now, trying to be coy, though he didn't think that the women had even been made aware of his presence. Rosemary continued with her story, fiddling with the fruit skewer in her champagne glass. She was wearing enormous black sunglasses that made it impossible for Michael to read her temperament.

“She and I, if the truth be known, have never gotten along famously. We have always been chronically at the mercy of our completely mismatched personalities and she always was a daddy's girl...”

Michael briefly flashed on his conversation with Louise in the diner the morning that they had located Greg in that motel in the Maldives.

“...So, it came as a complete surprise when she showed up at my door one night with...I dunno if it's right to call him a man, because, really he was more of a _creature_. And this man, Trenton or Travis, was _off._ I knew it right away. Eventually, she let on to the fact that she and Greg were getting a divorce and she and I had words.”

Amanda was leaned over on the table, completely rapt with the story. Michael was rapt, too, but for reasons that had nothing to do with Rosemary's keen ability to tell a story.

Rosemary sighed deeply before taking another sip of her drink. She reached down into her purse and pulled out a pack of Redwood cigarettes, holding them up to Amanda.

“Do you mind, sugar?”

“Not at all,” she said, scooting an ashtray closer to Rosemary.

Rosemary lit her cigarette and took a deep drag, tapping it on the side of the ashtray. She looked like she had come straight out of an old noir film, with her posture and mannerisms.

“Now, Johnny-that's my son, Louise's brother-” she sighed suddenly. “Johnny should not have struck his sister. He and I had words about that after, believe you me...”

_Johnny...Louise's older brother that had tried to set her on fire when they were kids..._

“But he did. He gave her a good, hard slap on the face, almost knocked her over.” She paused for a moment, shaking her head slowly. “But I tell you, Amanda, when he did...That Trenton or Travis...I don't think I've ever seen such a crazed look in any man's eye. He stomped right over to Johnny and decked him so hard that he sent him flyin' across my kitchen table. Knocked him right out. And then he stole off with Louise. And this mornin' when she came downstairs, I could swear that she had been with him again. I could _smell_ him on her. He reeks of pure dread. And where I come from in Savannah, if you smell that, you turn and run because you're not long for this world if you don't heed that smell...Of course, Louise, God love her, is just a _little_ too dense to understand these things...I mean, she swears that I'm wrong and it wouldn't be the first time, I admit. I could chalk it up to seeing my twenty-seven-year-old daughter in a funeral dress having recently become a _widow,_ but...I just can't shake the feeling that she ain't being entirely forthright with her mother,” she clucked.

Amanda was completely spaced out on Rosemary's story, so soaked in her style of story telling that she almost looked drunk.

Michael got to his feet and walked toward Rosemary. He hovered over them for a moment before both women looked up at him.

“How long ago you say this was, Rosemary?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

Rosemary looked up, searching her memory.

“It would have been toward the end of May, as I recall...”

“And this Trenton or Travis guy...What'd he look like?”

“Well, like the devil, I suppose...”

Michael looked down at her and quietly took another sip of his whiskey.

“He was tall, about six foot two or so. Thinning brown hair, scars on his face, crazed brown eyes...Why do you ask?” she inquired.

“No reason,” he said dryly, shaking his head. He cleared his throat and glanced at Amanda, who didn't seem to recognize the man in Rosemary's description.  _Good,_ he thought. He didn't need her getting all worked up about it. “Ladies...” he said cordially before he walked back into the house and pulled out his phone.

He would call Franklin first, he decided. It probably wasn't prudent to completely lose his shit just now.

 

....................................

 

“'Sup, Mike,” Franklin said, opening the door of his home to Michael.

Michael greeted him with a nod and stepped into the house.

“What brings you here on this fine ass mornin'?” asked Franklin, shutting the door.

The two started down into the recessed living room to head out onto the deck.

“Well, I wish I could say that it's purely a social call, Frank, but, you know it rarely is,” replied Michael dryly.

He wanted so badly for Franklin to tell him that he was crazy, that the things that he was divining in his mind's eye couldn't possibly be true. The two of them stepped out onto the deck and leaned on the railing, looking out toward the L.S. skyline. It was clear today, hardly any smog.

“So, what is it?”

Michael stared out for a moment longer before he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Frank, I...Louise's mother was at my house this morning hangin' out with Amanda and she...I dunno, she said some things that ain't sittin' right with me. I need for you to tell me if I'm batshit insane or not.”

Franklin looked at Michael, furrowing his brow. Michael could tell that he had him a little worried.

“Shit, man, I've always been straight with you,” Franklin said.

“I know, I know, man,” sighed Michael.

They sat quietly for a minute.

“Out with it, dawg,” said Franklin.

“I think...I'm a little worried that, uh...” he started laughing suddenly. It was partially nerves and partially because he hadn't yet said what he was thinking out loud and now that it was on the tip of his tongue, it seemed preposterous. “I'm a little worried that Trevor and Louise are up to somethin'.”

He was right. As vaguely as he had phrased it, it sounded ridiculous now that he was saying out loud and now he was starting to feel kind of flustered. He needed to explain himself.

“It's just, last night, over at Greg's, Louise asked about you and then she asked about Trevor...But there was somethin' about the way she asked about _him_...” Michael shifted uncomfortably on his feel. “I dunno, she was acting kinda weird when she brought him up. I didn't really think anything about it until I heard her mom talking about Louise showing up to her house with the devil on her arm...I mean as far as I know, Trevor obeyed our little no contact order, same as you and me, but...”

He decided to chance looking over at Franklin to gauge his reaction. And when he turned to look at him, his stomach did an immediate somersault. He had imagined that Franklin would be staring right at him, shaking his head, ready to assure him that what he was saying was way off base. But Franklin was blatantly averting his eyes and Michael could tell immediately that something was up.

“Frank?”

Franklin's eyes flitted around, looking everywhere except for Michael's way.

“Frank!” barked Michael.

Finally Franklin held his hands up defensively, shaking his head.

“Look, man. Talk to Trevor. That's all I can say...”

Michael narrowed his eyes at him.

“What do you know, Franklin?” he demanded.

Franklin scratched his face nervously before he let out a humorless laugh.

“Like I said, man, talk to Trevor.”

Franklin turned and walked back into his house and Michael quickly followed.

“Man, you gotta knock it off with the cagey shit, Frank!” Michael spat.

He needed answers now. If Trevor had gotten Louise into some kind of trouble... Franklin turned around to face him now. He opened his mouth to say something but stopped and sighed before he stepped toward Michael.

“Look, man. I wanna tell you. But if your fuckin' face starts turnin' blue...I ain't tryin' to give you mouth to mouth if you have a fuckin' coronary...I mean, I like you man, but...”

Michael rolled his eyes.

“Fuckin' spit it out,” Michael said, gesturing with his hands.

Franklin shifted and looked past Michael before looking him in the eye again.

“Last night, me and Chop was out for a walk in the hills and, uh...I saw Trevor's truck, so...I started walkin' toward it...”

“Uh huh,” Michael said brusquely.

“And...fuck, man...Louise was with him and...” Franklin was shifting on his feet now.

Michael sighed and shut his eyes.

“Were they freebasing?” he asked.

Franklin shot him a puzzled look.

_“What?”_

“Is she doin' speed, man? Did Trevor get her hooked on fuckin' meth?”

Franklin dragged his hand down his face shaking his head.

“You're worried that Louise is doin' meth?” he asked, confounded.

Michael stared at Franklin through narrow eyes.

“Well, yeah...I mean, it's not like me or you will do that shit with him and I imagine that he gets bored doin' it by himself when he's not back in Sandy Shores...And Louise, ya know, she's been through a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if she was tryin' to, ya know, escape.”

Franklin guffawed.

“Man, forget this,” he said turning away.

Michael was _really_ worried now. He had already exhausted the abysmal scenario in his head. He reached for Franklin and caught him by the shoulder and Franklin spun around to look at him again.

“What did you see, Frank?”

Franklin sighed deeply. He must have completely lost his resolve at this point. For some reason, Michael's theory about the meth had broken down some resistance in Franklin. Franklin pressed his lips together before he opened his mouth to speak again.

“I saw Louise _on top of_ Trevor, man. And she didn't have her mouth around a fuckin' stem, okay? She had her mouth on him. They was makin' out and shit. That's it.”

Michael was stunned. He couldn't quite tell if Franklin was fucking with him or not. This didn't really match Franklin's sense of humor to a _t_ , but there's no way he could be serious. Or right.

 _“No,”_ said Michael.

“Yeah,” shot Franklin.

“It couldn't have been Louise. Must have been a working girl...”

“No, it was definitely Louise. I _talked_ to them, Mike.”

Michael's brain was working in overdrive trying to comprehend what Franklin was saying and something must have short-circuited because he stumbled backward a little bit. Franklin was staring at him now, waiting for him to react.

“You _talked_ to them? And...and they were definitely making out? They weren't just fuckin' around and roughhousin'?”

 _That_ he could wrap his head around. He'd seen them do that before. In the bar, the night they met Isabelle, Louise and Trevor had been fighting over a phone. Anyone who hadn't known them could have gotten the wrong idea about them...Maybe it was like that?

“No, they wasn't just roughhousin' man...I _saw_. And Louise said she had feelings for the dude.”

“Was she drunk?” Michael asked, desperately grasping for an explanation.

“Naw. Besides, she told me that they had started it back when they were back over in Chumash...”

Michael was huffing now. He didn't know how or why, but Trevor had gotten his hooks into Louise. He sighed, gaining some of his composure back.

“I gotta talk to her,” Michael said starting up the stairs toward the front door.

Franklin followed.

“Man, don't do anything rash, okay? I mean, it ain't like she's stupid. I don't know why the fuck she's got it bad for _Trevor_ , granted but...”

Michael turned to Franklin now.

“Frank, she's confused. I _knew_ she wasn't okay, fuckin' knew it, but it's worse than I thought...”

He shot up the other set of stairs and out the door. Franklin called after him.

“Man, leave it!”

But it was too late. Michael couldn't let this slide. This was a special kind of sickness. He had gotten Louise into this whole mess, he had brought Trevor into it. He needed to make it right, somehow...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, Michael and his paternal imperative. I agree with Franklin. Leave it, man! He's not gonna, we know this. Thanks for reading :)


	4. Chapter 4

Louise sat in the front yard of her Mirror Park home. She had bought it just before it was about to go into foreclosure. Sure, she had missed the bargain, but she had liked the family that lived there. They were kind people and these days, with the stupid amount of money that she had received from Greg's life insurance pay out, she had more than enough to sate her and save that family from having to start over completely.

It was one of the older houses in the neighborhood. It was small, two bedrooms, but it had been well taken care of. The outside of it was periwinkle and it had a beautiful sundial design beneath the gables. That was what had caught her eye when she drove by it that day, a week after she had gotten out of the hospital. Escrow came through quick and now she had two beautiful yards, both with privacy hedges and a beautiful garden out front. The lake was just out front, too.

She was in an old vinyl lawn chair with her feet up on the industrial wooden spool that she used as patio furniture. She had a ceramic mug in her hand, with her paints on a tray to the side. She was painting the mug for Rose. She was never terribly fond of painting floral motifs, but she wanted to give her mother something for coming out all this way and also to make a peace offering that would hopefully placate her against grilling Louise about any men that may or may not have been in her life.

She had only been at it for about twenty minutes after her much-needed shower when she heard someone whistle from the front gate. She looked up to see Michael standing there. _Wow, she hadn't expected to see him so soon._

“Hey, now,” she chirped at him.

“Can I come in?”

“Of course,” she replied, putting her feet down.

He walked through the gate and came to rest where she was seated. He stood over her. He must not have seen the other chair just behind him. Louise looked up at him.

“Er, you...want something to drink?”

“No,” he replied blankly.

“Then, you wanna have a seat?” she asked him, gesturing at the chair behind him.

“No.”

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and looked up at him, but quickly realized that whatever had brought him here was not cordial in nature. She stood up and looked at him.

“Michael, what's wrong?” she asked, though she suspected that she already knew.

He was wearing sunglasses, so she couldn't see what was going on with the top half of his face. The bottom half, though, betrayed a scowl.

“Just got done visiting with Franklin,” he said matter-of-factly.

Louise felt her face twitch before falling into an open-mouthed frown.

“Yeah?” she asked tentatively. She cleared her throat. “How's he?”

“Oh, same as last night when _you_ talked to him, I suspect.”

He was angry, but he was summoning all he had to suppress that anger. He looked even more angry than the first night that they had met, when she had split his lip open. Louise averted her eyes and rubbing the back of her neck.

“He told you about that, huh?”

“Fuckin' A right he did, Louise. And I gotta tell ya...I wasn't terribly pleased with what he had to say.”

Louise felt like she was going to throw up. She knew that this day would come eventually, assuming that these guys didn't up and disappear from her life again they way that they had a few months earlier. But she hadn't expected that it would come so soon and that she would have to face the heat alone.

“Michael, I-”

“Stop, Louise,” he said brusquely, holding up his hand.

“There is nothing you can say that will make this easier for me to swallow, you hear me? Not a fuckin' thing!” he said, the last phrase having quickly reached a yell.

He turned and began pacing ferociously around the yard, shaking his head, and muttering under his breath. It was agonizing for Louise, even more agonizing than it had been that morning with her mother, but she didn't know what to say to calm him down.

“Ya know, I understand that life hasn't been a cakewalk for you, Louise, really, I understand that. It was never too easy for me either and I remember that, when I was your age, even after I had my kids, I was always chasing something, a feeling...But I picked that life Louise, I was at it for a long time. You? You're playing with fuckin' fire!”

Louise's breath caught in her chest. She could feel her anger rising. She hated being talked down to like this. He wanted to go and pull that _when I was your age_ bullshit with her? She crossed her arms and stared at him, hard.

 _“Playing?”_ she said, laughing humorlessly. “No, no, Michael,” she continued, shaking her head, “the games stopped when you left us in Chumash. Believe me, shit got real and it got real fast. There's nothing cute or trifling about this for me, okay?” she said pointing at her chest.

She uncrossed her arms and sighed at him. Michael's gaze softened, but only barely before he stepped to her, forcing her to look at him.

“Look, Louise,” he said. “You're young, you're smart, you're pretty. The world is your fuckin' oyster. You don't have to settle for this.”

Louise shot him an angry look. She shook her head and snorted, looking up toward the sky, inhaling sharply.

“You know, I'm getting _really_ sick of people telling me that I'm _settling,”_ she said closing her eyes, “when really, all's I'm trying to do is be me.”

She looked straight at him now.

“There's no self-help books for when you get kidnapped and you become enamored with the three criminals that kidnapped you and then your husband fakes his death...” She covered her face and laughed, though really, she felt like crying. “I can't go back to a normal life, Michael. There's no more normal. There never was. No matter what I do or where I go...This is going to stick to me. It's permanent.”

Michael was staring at her with a look of confusion.

“That's not true, Louise.”

She ignored him and looked past him now, talking more to herself than to him.

“You know, when I was a little girl, my brother would always torment me by throwing lit matches at my head and kicking dirt into my eyes. And one day, we were visiting my grandma on the reservation in Louisiana, and Johnny would just not let up, no matter how much I cried or begged him to stop. And one day, my grandma was on the porch of her house, watching him throw rocks at me and she said, 'Louise, if you show him that you can hold on to what's supposed to frighten you, then he can't hurt you anymore. Make something scary your friend, and you'll never have to be scared again...' So I looked down and there was a snake by my feet. And I picked it up without thinking twice about it. And when Johnny saw, he ran off into the woods and he didn't come back until after dark. And for the rest of that trip, every time he started in on me again, I would go outside and wait...And the snake would come back...”

Louise was completely lost in thought and Michael remained perfectly silent.

“Before we left to head back to Fort Carson, my grandma hugged me goodbye and she told me that...She said that I would always have one leg in what was underneath us. But that that was okay because sometimes it's worse up here on the surface than it is down there...She was right,” she laughed.

She looked up at Michael, who stared at her almost disbelievingly. She saw him swallow hard and he stayed quiet for a moment before he spoke.

“Trevor's not that kind of snake, Louise...Neither am I, neither is Frank...”

Louise smiled faintly at him now.

“You're not any kind of snakes. You're people. Beautiful, messy, complicated people...” she trailed off as she stepped past him to walk into her house.

He grabbed her by the arm and she turned to look at him. He took his sunglasses off and he had this goddamn heartbroken look on his face. Louise smiled very thinly at him and he let go as she turned to face him again.

“It isn't right, Louise. Not if it's you. Not _fuckin'_ you,” he said softly.

“It's never right, Michael!” she shot at him angrily.

Michael bit his lip and narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah, but it can be pretty _fuckin' wrong_ sometimes, can't it Louise!” he screamed at her.

She stared for a moment and she didn't break his stare as she walked backward toward her house before she turned to go inside.

 

..............................................

 

“...So,” said Trevor, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to wrap his head around what the young woman was telling him, “you're tellin' me that it's _normal_ that she's showing interest...That...uh, even though she's young and pretty and smart and has her whole fuckin' life in front of her, she, she ain't just in the throes of a weird post-traumatic stress episode that she's going to snap out of and then realize, like 'what the fuck am I doing with this guy,' and then kick me to the curb?”

The young woman, Onyx was her chosen name, sat in front of Trevor in his office wearing a trench coat. Even though it was dark in the office, he could see the body glitter that she had slathered on her face and in her red hair. She nodded in the affirmative.

“I had just gotten my first bachelor's degree when I met my boyfriend, Stagger. He's about your age. And the heart wants what it wants. I mean, even though society dictates that I should have met some nice, young, corn-fed white boy at a gallery opening or something, that still leaves a huge discrepancy between that world and what I know to be true in my heart.” She flipped her hair and folded her hands in her lap before she continued. “And Stagger's always been very supportive of my endeavors. He doesn't try to hold me back. As long as you don't try to hold her back, I'd say your prospects are good.”

Trevor nodded, considering this for a moment, lost in thought.

“So, do you want me to take this off and dance for you, or...”

Trevor snapped out of it and looked up at her.

“That won't be necessary. Uh...You know what, go out there and talk to Sapphire,” he said absently, gesturing toward the door. “Tell her I sent you. She'll tell you when you can start, okay?”

Onyx's face lit up and she let out a barely audible squeal from the back of her throat before she stood up.

“Welcome aboard,” Trevor called to her as she scurried out of the room excitedly.

A moment later, the doorway was darkened by a stocky male figure that Trevor quickly realized was Michael. _Great._

“Enter,” he said flatly.

Michael strode in, taking in the office as though he had never been in it before.

“Hi, T,” Michael said quietly, finally meeting his eyes.

Trevor stood up and walked to the fridge, pulling it open to retrieve two beers. He tossed one to Michael before cracking his own open, taking a long sip. He looked over to Michael then and saw that he hadn't opened his.

“Ya need some help there, sugar tits?” he asked facetiously, reaching for the beer in Michael's hands.

Michael recoiled.

“No, I got it,” he said, apparently not sensing that Trevor was fucking with him.

He opened his beer and took a drink, never breaking eye contact with Trevor.

“What's good with you, man?” Trevor asked, defeated suddenly.

He could have guessed why Michael was here, but he thought that he'd enjoy another moment of relative serenity before the shit squall. Michael simply shrugged at the pleasantry.

“Nothin'. Just, uh, thought I'd pop by.”

Trevor was quickly losing patience. Both of them knew that was bullshit. Michael didn't make house calls for the fuck of it.

“Yeah?” snorted Trevor. “So, you're _popping by_ wouldn't have anything to do with a certain conversation that you had with Franklin about me and a certain raven-haired angel pie in the back of my truck in the Vinewood Hills last night?” he asked with a sarcastic lilt in his voice.

Michael guffawed.

“What, were you fuckin' waiting here for me so you could rub that in my nose, T?” Michael spat.

Trevor stood up straight and started for his friend.

“Naw, naw, man. Nothin' like that,” he said affecting faux-benevolence. “See, I just figured that it was only a matter of time before you came in here, bringing the fuckin' dark clouds with you. So, I'm going on the offensive! That way, I don't do anything to undermine your deeply-held biases against me! I'm making it nice and fuckin' easy for you, Mikey-boy,” he said, shoving his finger into Michael's chest.

Michael glared at him.

“So I don't suppose that there's any chance that you'll knock this shit off? Ya know, let her go before you drag her into hell with you?”

Trevor was in the middle of swallowing his beer when he heard Michael say that. He swallowed hard and froze, his face turned away from him.

“She's naive, Trevor. Maybe a little crazy, too. But you and I both know that this life isn't right for her,” Michael said flatly.

Trevor turned to his friend now, his best friend. He could feel his cheeks burning.

“You just think you know what _everybody_ needs, don't you, Michael.”

Michael set his beer down hard on Trevor's desk and put one hand one his hip, pointing a jaunting finger at Trevor with his other hand.

“I think I know a confused girl whose having her head fucked with when I see one, Trevor,” Michael spat at him. “I mean, I know you can be a cruel motherfucker when you wanna be, but this-”

 _“This,_ Michael, is what it looks like when your boy Trevor _wants_ something!”

“She's not a fuckin' _thing,_ Trevor!” Michael yelled.

“I fucking _know_ that, you jumped up _fuck!”_ Trevor yelled back.

“Ay!” came a new voice to the chorus.

Franklin stood in the doorway for a second before he strode into the room, placing himself strategically between Michael and Trevor as he so often did.

 _“The fuck,”_ barked Franklin. “Michael, I wouldn'a told you shit if I thought you was gonna run up in here and jam him up!”

Trevor turned to Franklin now.

“Bullshit, Frank. You knew how he'd react.”

“I didn't tell him to start fuckin' drama, man. I told him 'cause the motherfucker came up to my house today and teased it out of me.”

 _“Enough,”_ snarled Michael.

All three of the men stood there, seething, no one really knowing what to do next. It was Michael that finally broke the silence.

“Think about it, Trevor...That's all I'm askin'...” he said, backing toward the door until he turned and walked out.

And then it was Trevor and Franklin, standing there in that darkened office. Trevor ran his hands through his thinning hair, trying his damndest not to rip it out of his head. He sighed deeply and took another swig of beer. Franklin paced the room, slowly, before he finally spoke.

“Man, I'm sorry...”

“Fuck it, Frank. I knew you'd tell him. Knew you'd feel like you _needed_ to tell him and for all I know...” Trevor said opening his arms, “...you're right. I mean, it would have been nice to keep it a secret for a while, but it would have come out to my best buddy sooner or later,” he finished, laughing dryly.

“He makes a point, T. I mean, what the fuck you doin' with her anyway? How do you think it's gonna pan out, huh?”

“Well, I don't know, Franklin, 'cause every time I get close to figurin' it out, you or Michael blows in and fucks it up,” he said as placidly as he could.

Franklin rolled his eyes.

“Look, man. Like I said, I ain't tryin' to make drama, okay? Just lookin' out, ya know,” he said, backing toward the door now.

He turned on his heel and strode out.

“Yeah, well maybe you could look somewhere else for a change, you fuck!” Trevor called after him.

Trevor sat back on his desk and stared at the floor. Part of him knew that every single thing that he had done and said in his life, every impulse that he had acted on, had chosen to act on, had led him to this point. Where he was being so heavily scrutinized by those that he chose to keep with. But there was a bigger part of him that was nothing but hot heat at the notion that he couldn't have anything nice in his life. It was fine if he had a stripper's ass in his face, it was fine if he was banging a working girl in a dank, dark alleyway. It was fine if it was an abstraction, a symbol, a shadow in the night. But if it was a real person, if it was a Louise...Someone that listened to him, that talked to him, really fucking looked at him, that had staying power, tenacity...That was too far flung somehow. And it fucking hurt to know that those closest to him thought as much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter gave me a sad. Anyone know any good jokes?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Such writer's block. Wow. Much creative constipation.

Louise hadn't heard a single, solitary fucking peep from any one of the Three Stooges in over a week. And she hadn't tried to contact any of them either, paying deference to her gun-shyness and embarrassment at being caught. The thing that pissed her off the most was that she thought of it as _being caught_. She was a fucking adult, and her choice of company was being scrutinized as though she was an obstinate teenager or some shit.

She busied herself, trying to keep her mind off her lot in a few ways, reconnecting with old friends and throwing herself into her work. She had changed jobs after the business in the spring and now she was working at a group home for “troubled kids” as what they called an _occupational art therapist._ Really, she was getting paid to watch and help kids with art projects and occasionally comforting (or restraining) one when bearing their soul on paper or in clay became too much for them.

One day, Louise was walking around the arts and crafts room of the group home, looking over the kids' shoulders and encouraging them. Indeed, she wasn't bullshitting these kids when she told each and every one of them that she thought their work was fantastic. She remembered being a kid and how good it felt to unleash all her shitty emotions onto a sketch pad, and these kids had plenty to let go of.

She had made her rounds when she reached Parker, a twelve year old kid who had been remanded into the care of the state after he had set his mother's boyfriend's motorcycle on fire. Parker was a special mix of fiery and teary. The kid was quick to tears at the slightest frustration, but even when he cried, you could see the smoldering anger behind his wet eyes.

When she stepped to his table, where he sat alone, as always, she could see his shoulders shaking slightly as he gripped his paint brush in his fist.

“You okay, Parker?” she asked quietly, not wanting to draw the attention of the other kids.

They tended to eat their own...

He gripped the brush harder refusing to meet her gaze.

“If you have something you wanna talk about-”

“Fuck off, Miss Louise,” he spat at her through strained vocal chords.

It always started off like this.

“As you wish...” she sighed, turning away.

He caught her wrist and she spun around and looked down at him.

“Wait...” he said quietly, looking up.

It was time for quiet study hour and the kids, self-stewards that they were, were putting away their art supplies and trickling out of the room Louise took a seat next to Parker and sat quietly with him until the last of the kids made their way of the room. She turned to him.

“You wanna tell me what's up, bud?” she said, leaning on the table on her elbows, patiently waiting for him to let her look into his teary eyes.

He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve brusquely, still not looking at her.

“I can't think of anything to paint,” he said quietly.

Louise studied him for a minute.

“Sweetie, it's okay. You don't have to paint anything today. You can try again tomorrow.”

“No,” he barked. “I _wanna_ paint but I can't. If I paint what I wanna paint, they'll make me move again. They'll say I'm a sicko and make me go away.”

“What makes you say that?”

“'Cause they're always saying I'm sick and stuff. And they're always watching me and telling on me to one another...” he said, his voice rising, straining to fight a sob.

“You're not sick, Parker. You're just in a shitty situation. It's not your fault.”

Parker wiped his eyes and looked into hers finally. His eyes were dark, almost black, framed by long, black lashes. The kid had an ocean of hurt behind those eyes, anyone could see it.

“My dad wrote me a letter from prison,” he said softly. Louise took the paint brush from him and set it aside, taking his hand.

“What did he have to say, Park?”

Another sniffle before he squeezed his eyes shut, pushing another stream of tears from his eyes.

“He said that they're not gonna parole him and they won't let him try again for a long time,” Parker replied.

His face contorted into a pained expression as he collapsed into her chest, whimpering before he let out a loud sob. Louise enveloped his body with her arms and rested her chin on top of his head. She wanted to cover him, to shelter him from all the shit being shoveled on him. She let him shake and whimper for a few moments before she brushed his dark hair off of his forehead.

“Do you feel like you're in prison with him, bud?”

He nodded wordlessly, his sobs and tears finally seeming to be retreating some.

“That's rough kid.”

“I wish I could break him out!”

“I know.”

“I feel like there's fire in me...”

Louise took him by the shoulders and looked him in the eye.

“There is fire inside of you, Park. But being made of fire doesn't make you fire-proof. You can still get burned, so...” She reached for the brush and put it back in his hand. “...You need to find a way to own it, okay? Make it yours. If you do that, you can put it where it belongs.”

Parker had stopped crying and now he looked up at her with those great big eyes, rimmed with red and swollen.

 _“You_ are doing great, okay?” she said.

It was as though it was all he needed to hear. He turned and dipped his brush in the paint and set about _scribbling his feelings instead of acting on them._ Louise propped her head up on her hand and watched him do it. And somehow, she knew that he was going to be okay.

 

.....................

 

Louise shuffled into Solomon's beach house and was immediately met with a barrage of greetings from people that she hadn't seen in some time. Some of the faces were welcome, others were ones that she would rather forget, but she was happy to be here. She needed the distraction. All of her attempts to distract herself from her itch were backfiring, only serving to make her a little more depressed, even when she thought that she was doing some good (read: helping children work through the shitty hands that they'd been dealt).

Solomon appeared from the kitchen, finally, holding a scotch and opening his arms to her. He strode toward her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“First off, I would like to thank you for making an effort.” He gazed up and down her body then. “And, oh how your efforts have paid off, Louise...”

Louise rolled her eyes. This old son of a bitch really couldn't help himself.

“Second,” he started, “I would like for you to imagine that this is like any old trip to the dentist, and remind you to grin and bear it. It will be over before you know it...”

Louise sighed, suddenly feeling the urge to punch him in the face.

“The dentist has the wherewithal to get me high before he starts torturing me,” shot Louise.

“Well, this is Los Santos, sweetheart. I'm quite certain that there's nothing to stop you from getting a good buzz before we party down.”

“I was kidding, you ass. You know that I'm here because I want to be, right?”

She was telling the truth. Solomon had rattled off the guest list to her in a bid to encourage her attendance, and there were people on that list that she wanted to see. And yes, even he was one of them.

“It's my birthday, darling...”

“Happy birthday, Sol...”

Solomon sucked his teeth with his mouth closed (thank goodness) and looked Louise up and down one more time.

“Louise, if I were forty years younger, I would propose marriage right this instant...”

“If you were forty years younger, you would have quite a bit of explaining to do to the woman who gave your deplorable children life.”

“And it would be worth it, Louise. Shall we?” Solomon said, offering his arm.

Louise smiled reluctantly and roped her arm into his.

 

 

The night had been, as she had anticipated, a nice distraction. It was nice to see some of her old friends. Hell, it had even been nice perching her head on the heels of her hands while a group of them sat around a kitchen island listening to Solomon tell them that the golden age of Vinewood had ended in the early '70's and here were the reasons why. Spoiler alert: the millenials weren't going to resurrect it.

Eventually, Louise decided that she could use some fresh air and she headed out the french doors and walked onto the sand, making her way to the shore.

She slipped her shoes off and let the sand sift through her toes, careful to avoid broken glass and sharp rocks. It was already getting a little bit dark, but Louise didn't care. She got to the water and saw that the waves were breaking right on the shore, sending the tiny rocks careening. It wasn't exactly hospitable to dipping one's toes into the ocean, but she let herself appreciate the discordant meeting of the water and the sand, careful to keep herself from getting pelted with stones.

Louise didn't want to think about anything pertaining to the last week, two months, six months, year and a half of her life. She just wanted to be in the moment. Solitary. She got well and deep into the song of the waves, walking in the sand when she looked up and was startled to see a figure.

A man with well-coiffed hair in a black suit, standing there with his hands in his pockets. Michael De Santa.

 _“Fuck you,”_ spat Louise, impulsively.

“I scare ya?” Michael said, taking no pains to hide his amusement.

Louise inhaled sharply, trying to get her bearings back after having them robbed by the man before her.

“What are you doing here?” Michael raised his eyebrows.

“Well, I was headed to the same function you were at and, apparently great minds think alike, because my immediate thought was that I could use some solitary quiet time by the water before I headed in,” he said, looking past her.

Louise rubbed her collar bone. It was cold and she was nervous still even with a friendly, albeit unwelcome, face in her midst.

“You came here because you knew I'd be here...”

Michael scoffed.

“Whatever, Louise. Get over yourself.”

“I kinda tried that and it backfired,” she said in a droll tone.

Michael studied her, trying to glean some meaning from what she had said, but apparently decided to leave well enough alone when he failed.

“I saw you over here and thought that I oughta come and say 'hi.'”

As though they were on friendly terms right now.

“Hi,” she said brusquely.

Michael flinched and started toward her.

“Come on, Louise...”

“Shut up,” she said.

Michael was the cause of her weird little itch. That itch that had been plaguing her for the last week and a half, give or take. She knew it and so did he.

He walked toward her and stopped a few feet in front of her.

“Where's Amanda?” Louise asked.

Michael studied her face for a moment.

“At home,” he said simply.

“Why are you here?” she asked pointedly.

Michael furrowed his brow.

“Because I wanted to see how you were.”

“I'm on the lower end of medium drunk and I feel fucking _fabulous,”_ she lied.

She was neither drunk nor was she feeling fabulous at this moment. She looked at him now, waiting for him to criticize her, or at the very least, chide her for being so angry at him.

“You look beautiful.”

“Shut up,” she repeated.

“No, I'm serious. First night you were with us in Chumash, Solomon called you a bombshell. I didn't see what he meant then but I do now.”

Louise rolled her eyes.

All these dudes that thought that they could make her forget how shitty they'd been to her by paying her some soaring compliment. It was bullshit. She knew better.

“You are _so_ weird,” she said flatly.

 _“What?”_ he shot defensively. “You look nice in that dress.”

It wasn't a fancy dress. It was black and white and cotton and stripey and casual. He picked an odd night to compliment her on her choice in clothing.

“This is the dress I wore the night of Greg's first wrap party,” she said, kicking sand toward Michael. “He was so worked up over it that we screwed in a coat closet. It was fun. Do you still think I look _beautiful?”_ she asked with bitter sarcasm.

“Yeah,” he answered right away. “Nice try, Louise. I know what you're trying to do,” he sighed. “You think you can make yourself look like the Whore of Babylon because you and your _husband_ had a roll in a public place in L.S.? Been there, done that,” he said flatly.

“I'd rather be a whore than your sacrificial lamb,” she said, picking up a stray beer bottle and tossing it past his head.

Michael clenched his jaw and glared at Louise.

“You know, it's pretty obvious that you're doing that thing, Louise...Trying to make yourself look big and scary...”

“It's called setting up a false dichotomy,” she said sarcastically. “You know, the way you make you and your life sound so _awful_ and make it sound like I should sequester myself in a fucking _cottage_ in an _enchanted forest_ to get away from you...” she said, widening her eyes and holding up her hands.

Michael snorted but it was completely devoid of humor.

“God, I wish you'd grow up...” he said, looking away from her.

“Then why are you treating me like a child, Michael?” she huffed.

She saw Michael clench his fists at his side as his face tensed.

“I'm not treating you like a child, Louise! I'm treating you like a normal person! Count yourself lucky because if you'd known half the shit I've done in my sorry life, you'd feel like fucking _royalty!”_ he yelled at her.

Louise stomped toward him. When she got close enough, she dropped her shoes and grasped him by the shoulders. She tilted her head at him.

“Is there nowhere between completely disregarding human life and treating people like royalty where I could _drift_ , Michael? Please? I don't want for you to disappear, but seriously, the kinds of compromises that I would have to make to accommodate your myopic fucking world view would be _staggering_ ,” she said only half-sardonically.

She hated his disapproval. It did nothing for her. And she knew that there was little that she could do short of bowing to all of his demands that she stop feeling to make him back off.

Michael's eyes softened then. He looked at her. It was as though her hands had anesthetized him, like he was one of those eastern European babies that nobody had ever held.

“Louise-”

“Let me be a whole person, Michael, even if I fall on my ass. _Please.”_

He shot her a pained look and she chuckled at him despite herself. He smiled a faint but genuine smile at her. She wrapped her arms around him, enveloping him in a hug, which he returned. They were making up in some small way, she could tell, but she wasn't dumb enough to think that it was over, that he would give her the go-ahead to do as she pleased. She rested her head on his shoulder, which reeked of his fancy designer aftershave.

“You're such a gomer,” she said playfully.

 _“Easy,”_ he shot back.

She broke the hug and looked into his eyes.

“Amanda wants you and your mother over for dinner one of these nights. Think you can be in a room with me long enough to make my wife happy?”

His eyes betrayed a mix of smiling and pleading. Louise rolled her eyes at how pitiful he looked just then.

“Yeah, I'll cope,” she said, picking up her shoes and heading back toward the house.

“You're a doll!” she heard him call at her back. She waved back in acknowledgment without turning around.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Look out. Thar be smut ahead.

Trevor stood across the street from Bean Machine in Morningwood, waiting for Louise to come out. He had been tailing her all morning trying to work up the nerve to go and talk to her. It wasn't as though he wouldn't have gladly strode up to her at any other time, hooking his arm around her and demanding that she follow him blindly wherever he felt like taking her. He'd done so the day that he flew them out to Fort Carson to her mother's house.But looking back on their last conversation, how she had pouted at him for not calling her, he wasn't entirely sure that he had enough clout with her to pull something like that off after his latest absence.

For fuck sake, though, he'd needed some time to think, to clear his head after Michael had blown through his door and started trying to make him feel shitty about spending time with her. What he would have liked to do is to go and find her and drive them out to a cave somewhere where they could have lived as troglodytes. That way, they would be out of sight, out of mind for his best buddy. But, he figured, what worked for him probably wouldn't have flown with her. So he opted instead to sleep on it. For two weeks.

_Ugh, what kind of guilt-trip does she have up her sleeve this time?_

Louise finally emerged from the building carrying a plastic cup. She sauntered up the block slowly, taking sips from her cup and watching the people that passed as Trevor kept pace across the street, unbeknownst to her. At the end of the block, she leaned against another building. Trevor crossed the street.

She had her eyes on passersby and didn't see him walking up to her right away. When she did turn to face him, she stared at him as though he were a stranger. She straightened up just then.

“Hey,” she said flatly.

Trevor narrowed his eyes at her and immediately went on the offensive. She wanted to be coy with him? Over his dead body.

“What the fuck?” he shot defensively, holding out his arms.

She looked up at him with innocence in her eyes, but that wide-eyed stare quickly turned into a glare.

“What the fuck what?” she spat.

He took a step toward her and leaned down to meet her eyes.

“You're not even going to say 'hi'?” he asked.

“I did.”

“No, you said _'hey'. 'Hey'_ is, to the civilized world, the lethargic, indifferent cousin of 'hi', Louise,” he said straightening up now.

Louise smiled humorlessly at him.

“Well, maybe you make me _feel_ lethargic and indifferent,” she said cheekily.

She shook her head and sighed before she turned the corner and started walking. Trevor immediately started walking beside her.

“Jesus, Louise, are you _really_ going to pout at me now? I came to see you so we could talk and this is how you act?”

Louise didn't respond verbally, instead flipping him the bird without looking at him.

Trevor chuckled.

“Aw, come on, Lou. Don't you at least wanna hear my excuse?”

“Nope.”

“Then don't you wanna yell at me or call me an asshole or swing at me?” he chirped at her.

Louise stopped in her tracks and turned to face him.

“You made me feel like a _fucking idiot_ , Trevor. You made me feel like I wasted months of my life thinking about you and worrying about you when you could obviously _give_ a flying fuck that there was someone here waiting for you to pick up the fucking phone and let them know that you were okay. And then you have the gall to show up only to disappear _again_ until it was convenient for _you_ to make an appearance. So, _yes_ , Trevor. That makes you an asshole as far as I'm concerned!” she shouted at him, shoving her finger into his chest and drawing stares from passersby.

She had literally backed him against the wall and it probably looked a little odd to see this clean woman in her gray dress and mary jane shoes shouting down a guy that had close to a foot on her and who was often mistaken for a homeless man.

Trevor smiled down at her. She was so fucking cute when she was angry. He leaned over and hoisted her over his shoulder, eliciting a startled squeal.

“What are you doing?” she yelled at him.

He carried her into the alley behind that corner building.

“Louise, very shortly the cops will be arriving because there is no way in hell that those people on the street didn't think that this was a kidnapping...”

“It _is_ a freaking kidnapping!”

“...So, we're going to need to boost a ride and get the fuck out of here as fast as we can. Are you with me?”

“No!”

He quickly spotted a little silver sedan. He set Louise down and ran over to it and looked inside to see that the doors were locked. He used his elbow to break the driver's side window, immediately setting off the car alarm as he unlocked it and pulled open the door, sitting in the driver's seat and reaching under the steering column to hot wire it.

“Get in!”

He looked up to see Louise standing there frozen and wide eyed with her arms outstretched.

“Come the fuck on, Lou, cops'll be here any second!”

She was making a weird whimpering noise from the back of her throat.

“Do you _want_ me to fucking get arrested?”

She exhaled sharply and looked around before she walked briskly to the passenger's side and got in and not a minute too soon as the car roared to life as she did.

“My girl's got the magic touch!” howled Trevor as he sped out of the alley, narrowly missing two pedestrians.

“Trevor!” Louise barked, holding onto the dash.

They drove out of Morningwood and made it about four blocks before the sirens came. Louise turned around and Trevor looked over to see her gaping before she turned toward him.

“What the fuck!”

“How much heat do we got?”

“Well, there's just one...two...two squad cars,” she stammered.

“Aw, nothin' we can't manage,” he chirped before he swung a hard left across two lanes of traffic. Louise was breathless now, bracing herself against the back of her seat.

“You are fucking crazy!” she yelled before she looked back again.

He looked over and saw her shoulders relax a little bit.

“I think you lost them,” she said tentatively.

She spoke too soon, though as they were quickly intercepted by another squad car, pulling a gasp from Louise. They were in the hills now and the roads were narrow and curvy. Trevor punched it as he swerved around the cop car, clipping it just barely.

They wound through the hills and he looked over to see Louise sitting perfectly still with her eyes shut tight, head down. He couldn't tell if she was praying or if she was just trying to summon her happy place. He chuckled at the sight. She remained still until the got to Galileo Drive, slowly raising her head and looking around.

They had lost the cops a couple of miles back, but Trevor was still driving like a bat out of hell as the sirens continued to blare. He quickly pulled off the road and started driving into the grassy hills, gunning it up the steep grade until they came to rest in some tall brush.

He let the engine idle as he looked over at Louise. They gazed into each other's eyes, both of them quiet, listening as the sirens got fainter with each passing minute. Finally, it was quiet. Louise continued to breath hard through her nose. Trevor couldn't tell if it was adrenaline that made her eyes light up the way they did or if she was just royally pissed of at him. Or scared of him.

“What the hell was that, Trevor?” she whispered.

“Joyride.”

“There was nothing joyful about it for me,” she hissed.

He turned his body so that he could face her completely.

“It was a test.”

Louise guffawed but she didn't say anything for a moment. She just shifted her gaze around the car for a minute, taking in what he had said. She rubbed her forehead.

“You were testing me?” she asked incredulously.

“No. It's the other way around.”

Louise was obviously confused. He sighed at her. When he spoke, he spoke softly.

“I didn't call you or come find you because Michael came to see me after Franklin told him what we were doing out in those hills...”

“Yeah?” she said looking even more confused now.

“He told me that he didn't want for me to pull you down into my world of shit. He said that you didn't understand what you were getting into or who I am. And I got to thinking that he had a point. So for the last couple of weeks, I've been letting that marinade, trying to decide what I wanted to do about it...”

Louise's eyes were softer now, if not a little worried.

“And then the other day, I was sitting there, thinking about you and I realized something. I realized that I already know enough about you to know how _I_ feel. And you're a big girl. You can make your own choices,” he said, watching as Louise shifted her gaze downward, twisting her mouth to the side.

She looked petrified and that was scaring the shit out of _him._ He realized suddenly that he wasn't sure that he was ready to get rejected. Especially if she asked him to take her back home and he had to sit with her, knowing that what they had had was coming to an end. He pressed on, though, running on pure steam because he knew that he needed to lean into this. They couldn't keep skirting this issue indefinitely.

“So I thought that I'd give you a slice of what kind of person I am so that you could make an informed decision...” he said, trailing off.

He avoided her eyes suddenly. It got quiet. Scarily quiet save for the idling engine of the car. And it stayed that way for a minute. It was fucking agony and after a little while it started to piss him off. If she was going to twist the blade, the least she could do was do it quickly.

“The night you guys came to the warehouse looking for me, I had bullets flying over my head,” she started.

Her voice was quiet. He looked up at her now.

“I remember the sound of Marcus and Gavin's bodies hitting the floor. Those were _your_ bullets, Trevor.”

Her head was cocked away from him a little bit as she stared at him through the sides of her narrow eyes.

“I already got my _slice_ and I still wanted for you to come back to me...”

His heart was beating hard in his chest. She wasn't exactly being succinct with her answer.

“Okay?” he said tentatively.

"When I think of you, I'm not just thinking about bullets and bodies. Even if Michael thinks I should be...You're a whole person to me..."

She stared at him for a minute before she realized that whatever it was that she had been trying to say was not getting through to him. She rolled her eyes before she leaned over and kissed him hard on the mouth. She broke the kiss, but held onto his face.

“So what do you do after you commit grand theft auto and outrun the cops? Are you supposed to lay low for a while or something?”

Trevor couldn't help but break into a wide smile before he kissed her again.

“That is _exactly_ what I do, sugar. And I know just the place to do it.”

 

...............................

 

The drive to Sandy Shores went by fast. Louise had let Trevor hold her hand for most of the way, though the wind whipping through the broken window made conversation less-than-feasible. Louise leaned against the glass, taking in the sights. Trevor suspected that this was quite the nostalgia trip for her, seeing as how she had grown up in a duplicate environment.

They pulled up to his trailer and they both exited the car. He headed into the yard with Louise bringing up the rear.

“Louise, my dear, welcome to your Trevy's humble abode,” he said trying to affect a false air of fanfare.

He led her up the rickety steps and pushed through the door. He walked a few steps in before he turned to face her. He saw her eyes widen as her jaw dropped.

“Oh my God,” she said incredulously.

_He should have called Ron and told him to spruce it up a bit._

“Er...” he started.

Louise just looked around, slowly.

“It's not _that_ bad,” Trevor said defensively.

“Oh my God,” she repeated through a faint laugh.

She walked farther into the trailer before she turned to Trevor. “

We lived in a trailer _exactly_ like this when I was a kid!”

Trevor relaxed a little before he did a double take and responded.

“I thought you grew up in that house where your mom lives...”

“No, no, Rose bought that after my dad died...” she said, trailing off as she looked around the trailer.

She pointed toward the bedroom.

“Rose and dad slept there and,” she said turning toward his futon, “Johnny slept there. I slept there,” she said pointing to where his dining table was.

She walked to the wall and drummed her fingers on it.

“We had the same walls, except they had palm branches instead of the whole tree...”

She walked over to the other side of the kitchen counter and pointed at the floor.

“This is where the hot water heater is, huh?”

Trevor was taken aback.

“Yeah...”

“We found a huge litter of baby kitties in there one winter,” she said, covering her mouth and walking toward him now.

She shook her head with a look of amusement on her face, still looking around.

“This is _so_ weird, Trev.”

“Er, so, you had to sleep in the living room with Johnny?” he asked her.

She shook her head.

“Only until I was nine. It took forever for the building permits to come through and when they did my dad stayed home for a whole month, working night and day to add to it. He put on two more rooms...”

They were quiet for a minute. Louise seemed to be lost in her memories.

“So my house isn't enough to send you running for the hills? I thought Michael was going to die of sadness when he saw it.”

Louise smiled at him.

“Some of my best memories are in a place exactly like this.” She furrowed her brow and looked away before continuing, “Some of my worst ones, too but...”

Trevor smiled down at her, taking her face in his hand. She gazed back at him, her eyes alight in flashes of blue and green.

“I'm sorry I didn't call you the last couple of weeks. I really was just trying to figure some shit out in my head.”

She tilted her head and stroked the back of his hand.

“What did you figure out?”

He wasn't quite sure how to answer that question. His feelings hadn't changed in the past couple of weeks save for the faint specter of a twinge of guilt planted there by Michael.

“I figured out that I need a fuckin' drink and so do you. Let's get out of here.”

 

................................

 

“What in the hell, Trevor?” Janet said, slowly shaking her head and looking at Louise.

Louise was shooting pool with a couple of old rednecks, or schooling them on the game, rather.

“I dunno what you're on about, lady.”

“Like hell you don't,” Janet chided in her faint country twang. “That girl can't be more than half your age. And you want me to buy that she ain't screwy in the head?”

Trevor took a sip of his beer.

“I didn't say she wasn't...She _is_ more than half my age, though. She just has a baby face.”

Janet glared at him.

“Say...She ain't that crazy girl that lives by the lighthouse that you told me about, is she?”

Trevor scoffed at her.

“No!” he said defensively. “That ended a long time ago. Even I have my limits where crazy is concerned.”

“Well, then who the hell is she?”

“It's a long story, Janet, but to answer your previous question, yes, she came here of her own free will. She's not my captive, she's here because she _wants_ to be. Now, I believe that I ordered a vodka and tonic for my young friend over there, so if you don't mind...” Trevor shot.

He looked back over toward Louise.

“Sir, that is _not_ how you handle a pool cue,” Louise scolded one of the rednecks, snatching the stick from his hand and correcting his hand position.

 

........................................

 

Louise and Trevor sat at the bar, out of earshot from the sparse few other patrons, staring at each other. Trevor had wished aloud that Louise was more of a lush than she was and she had surprised him pleasantly by informing him that she was indeed a lush when the occasion called for it, promising to let him see her in that state at a later date.

They were facing each other, knees interlocked. Trevor was afraid almost afraid to touch her in this place, worried that it would sully her somehow. He didn't say that out loud. He knew that Louise would just say something snide to embarrass him for having such a thought.

Now they sat, their knees touching lightly as Louise teased answers out of him about his past. Every time she veered into sensitive territory, she lulled him out of his climbing anger by looking at him pensively with those wide green eyes.

“Suspected psychosis, delusions of grandeur, overt aggression, inability to form secure attachments, avoidance...Unfit to perform, grounded for life...”

Louise stared at him sympathetically.

“That _bitch,”_ she said sneering.

Trevor let himself laugh at Louise's hostility toward that psychiatrist whose cameo in his life had been brief but formative because he knew that she wasn't poking fun at him. Plus, he had never heard her use such misogynist language before and he suspected that she rarely did.

“I got what I could out of it...”

“And _nobody_ grounds Trevor Philips...” she said tapping the bar emphatically with her finger.

“Fuckin' A right, Lou.”

Louise sucked down the last of her drink before Trevor pushed the other at her. She was nursing them good. She was quiet for a minute, staring into her drink before she asked him another question.

“What did you do when they made you leave? I mean...How did it make you feel?”

Trevor studied her for a second. It seemed like she was working something out in her own head as she listened to him.

“It felt like shit, Louise. I moped and drank and kept my curtains shut for a few months. But the worst part was that I disappointed my ma.”

Louise looked at him intrigued now, no doubt thinking as he had, that their former lives had once again proven eerily similar.

“Yeah?” she tried.

“Yeah. She had plenty to say about it,” he said, his voice trailing off. _“You_ know all about that, though, huh Lou?”

Louise studied his face for a second, contemplating what he was saying. She sat like that a minute before she sighed and shrugged.

“I...quit cheerleading. Rose was pissed off about that, but it's kinda apples and oranges-”

Trevor leaned in when he interrupted her.

 _“You_ were a cheerleader?” he said, unable to hide his intrigue. “With the...” he gestured at his legs and torso, trying to indicate that he was referring to the uniform, a uniform that had made frequent appearances in some of the adult fare that he enjoyed in his solitude. He was a little too excited now to express himself verbally. Louise pulled a slightly disgusted face at him.

Trevor glared back at her. It wasn't like he had a thing for high school girls or anything. But he had been rebuffed by many a cheerleader when he, as a secondary school student, meandered across the border to see what was so great about American football. He had quickly discovered that it was _cheerleaders_ and getting shut down so many times had planted an affinity for those stuck-up girls in his brain, a tiny, albeit skewed aspect of his sexuality that lingered well beneath the surface until he caught a half-time show on T.V.

“Yeah, when I was in _high school.”_

“Yeah, I gathered,” Trevor answered sarcastically. _“Please_ tell me you still have that outfit, Louise,” he pleaded.

Louise raised her eyebrows at him.

“Why the fuck would I keep something like that?”

“Because, Louise, you might have had the presence of mind to recognize that someday, you could make a sad pervert twenty years your senior _very_ happy by letting him see you in it!”

Louise snorted.

“You're twisted,” she said.

“You're gorgeous,” he replied, taking a swig of his beer.

She looked at him, blushing a little bit, trying to hide her smile.

“I said I didn't have the uniform anymore, Trevor.”

He smiled crookedly at her.

“I heard what you said. I hear everything you say.”

Louise let her smile grow a little bit.

“You do?” she said leaning toward him.

He met her half way.

“Every word.”

He was gripping the sides of her knees now. She was shooting him the Louise Bisby-or-whatever-she-was-calling-herself-these-days answer to bedroom eyes. Peering into him like she thought that she could transport herself inside her head, or him into hers. And once she was satisfied that she could do no such thing, she mouthed her thoughts to him instead.

_“Let's go.”_

 

 

Dusk had fallen by the time they started walking quietly through the empty, dusty streets of Sandy Shores toward his place, side by side, saying nothing. By the third or forth glance he had shot her way, he could see her smiling straight ahead. She slipped her hand into his and they walked like that for a minute before he stopped suddenly.

She had been walking briskly enough that his sudden stop slung her back toward him. He still held onto her hand as she walked toward him, into his chest, looking up at him finally. He leaned over and kissed her, letting go of her hand and placing his hands on either side of her face as he pushed his tongue into her mouth. She responded by pressing into him, placing her hand on his waist, dragging her fingers across the fabric of his shirt, which immediately set his crotch a-tingling.

He dropped his hands to her waist and, just as they had some months ago at the airfield, they started stumbling and swaying a little bit, luckily in the right direction, toward his trailer.

Louise had, through force of her own habit, locked the door to the trailer before they had left for the bar. With no small amount of frustration, Trevor fought the antiquated lock to the house for a minute before the door swung open, just before he was about to kick it in.

He pulled Louise into the living room by her hand. She collapsed backward into the half-open door, slamming it shut with her body where he advanced upon her. The only light in the room came from the neon sign hung by the fridge. It filled the room with a cool glow, providing enough light for Trevor to see Louise clearly as she pulled a hair tie out of her hair, letting it fall. That let him know that it was a go.

She got on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing into him, prompting him to lift her up and press her against the door as they french kissed with slow, almost deliberate movements of their lips and tongues. He heard her shoes hit the floor, one after the other. Louise was as aroused as he was now as evidenced by her soft moans, which were making it incredibly difficult for Trevor to keep his mind on foreplay.

They stumbled backward into the bedroom, which was illuminated by a small, dim bedside lamp, his arm still locked around her waist, and collapsed onto the bed. And whether it was because she was reading his mind or because her desire matched his, Louise got up on her knees, hovering over Trevor. She didn't bother with the zipper, instead grabbing her skirt under the hem and pulling it over her head in one motion. When she got it off, her necklace dropped from the collar to her chest, providing a diving bell for his gaze, which shifted downward.

Trevor got an eye full as she lowered herself down onto him, straddling him now. Her tits looked fucking amazing in that pink brassiere.

He kicked off his shoes and then shot up and buried his face between her breasts, pushing them into his lips gently. He couldn't control his groaning now. He looked up at Louise. He could see now that her lips were a just a little bit flushed, which shot another bolt of arousal through him as he grabbed her waist and flipped her on her back.

He leaned over her, keeping one of his hands gently on her waist while he used the other hand to push one of the cups of her bra aside. He gazed at her breast for a moment, which was more pretty than he could have imagined, before he gingerly placed his mouth over it, nibbling her hardening nipple lightly. That pulled a low, soft groan from her throat as she arched her back and writhed into him.

He couldn't take anymore and Louise, with her sudden ability to read his mind, shot up, edging him upward with her shoulder. He was on his knees now, looking down at her as she used her nimble fingers to unbutton his jeans. She looked up at him, biting her lip as she slid them down past his waist, liberating his hard cock.

"Take your shirt off," she whispered, unclasping her bra.

He complied, grabbing the collar of the shirt and pulling it off over his head. She collapsed back on the bed and she stared up at him, lightly biting the tip of her index finger as she let her gaze fall to his crotch. She smiled an adorable, crooked smile before she took her hand away from her mouth.

"I really did miss you, Trev," she said playfully yet earnestly before she beckoned him to her with her finger.

He lowered himself down as Louise pulled him in closer with her legs. She reached down and pulled her underwear off before she grabbed his cock, pulling a shudder from Trevor. He let her guide him to her and he slowly pushed in. She sighed and grabbed the back of his neck as he did.

 _"Jesus,_ Louise," he choked out.

Louise was was content letting him take the lead for the most part, sensing that one well-placed gyration or touch on her part could bring their first fuck to a standstill before either of them wanted for it to end. So she was showing them both mercy by letting Trevor thrust into her, sometimes rhythmically, sometimes more frenetically. She contributed with her eyes, mostly. When he did something right she let them roll back in her head a little bit. Otherwise she bore into him with her stare.

Finally, with Louise propped on her elbows, he could see that he was doing something _very_ right. Her head was dropped and tilted, eyes closed, mouth hanging open just a little bit. Her moaning and sighing became more frequent until, finally...

“Oh, God,” she half-whimpered, half-slurred as she grabbed the back of his neck, her eyes closing tighter as she gasped and shuddered.

He could feel her coming, the wetness, the pulsing, and when she did, it sent him over the edge. His thrusts became erratic as he came, grunting and whimpering, stomach muscles twitching with every electrical shock being sent through him.

 

Afterward, they both lay there for a moment before Louise reached over and grabbed Trevor's hand interlocking fingers with him... Her eyes were closed now and she rubbed her lips together, sighing. She looked so fucking beautiful to him, more beautiful than ever, in fact. He thought back to the day that they first met, when he had walked in on her in that little motel room in Chumash. How she had stared at him like a frightened little doe. How she had expertly navigated his taunts in the car on the way to Lester's. He never could have imagined that the same person would be naked in bed next to him some four months later.

She rolled over onto her stomach and looked down at him. She took one of his hands in both of hers, studying it and playing with his fingers. _Christ,_ he couldn't remember the last time he had been touched like this, like someone wanted to touch him, if ever. He didn't know what to do with it, really. It felt a little too hot in his hands. And, because he was used to his own tenderness always being unrequited, and because he had never been all that good at pillow talk anyway, he responded in the only way he knew how.

“You know, baby...I've been thinking about it. And you were right. You _are_ too easy for me,” he quipped.

Louise looked up and glared at him for a minute, no doubt pissed off that he had, instead of externalizing all those sweet nothings in his head, made a droll and off-color comment. But Louise had always been very duck-like in her ability to allow Trevor's brand of insanity to roll off her back and so she called his bluff. She sighed and, without breaking eye contact, she picked up his hand and bit down on his index finger, hard enough to take him by surprise.

He jerked his hand away from her mouth and grabbed her wrists pulling her on top of him.

 _“Ohh, I love you! Fuck,”_ he said through sharp inward breaths through his teeth. _“Ergh, goddammit!”_

Louise giggled and leaned in to kiss him, but, seeing that his mouth was preoccupied making sounds of pain and arousal, opted to kiss and nibble him on the neck instead. Trevor looked over and saw that her back was curved with her ass in the air as she buried her face into his neck, which was enough to give him another semi.

Soon enough, as he stared at her ass, Trevor settled down and when Louise saw, she migrated back up to his face and started kissing his bottom lip. He opened his mouth to welcome hers again, feeling her warm body pressed against him, those tits, that mouth. _What the fuck am I going to do with you, Louise?_ He sighed into her.

_This is fucking splendid._

As soon as the refractory period was exhausted, they went at it again, with Louise on top this time. The sound of the bed springs rocking and both of them moaning and sighing and swearing under their breaths was symphonic. Trevor would have liked to have heard some crazy, dead German motherfucker try to top their music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sad to say that I've kinda hit a wall, friends. Let me know how you're liking it so far, please. I could definitely use some encouragement or wisdom or somethin'...


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all you lovely people that commented and helped me deal with the wall. You rule and I love you!

“Dammit, Angelfish, get those greens out the steam basket before they aren't green anymore,” Rosemary barked.

Louise snapped out of her daze and walked over to the range in the kitchen of Michael and Amanda's lavish Rockford hills home. She pulled the basket out of the saucepan and shook the greens out into a waiting wok.

Amanda, it turned out, wasn't a terrific cook. Rosemary was, though, and so she had dragged Louise over to their house two hours earlier to assist her in the kitchen while Michael sat out on the back patio.

“Chop up some more garlic,” Rosemary demanded without looking at Louise.

Amanda shot Louise a knowing smile and Louise returned an _I know, right?_ look. Louise diligently minced two more cloves of garlic and put them in a tiny bowl before bringing them to her mother.

“May I go outside and play with the other children now, mother?” Louise asked flatly.

“Cute, Louise,” Rosemary shot back without missing a beat.

“If it will get you out of my hair for five minutes, then yes, you are excused.”

Louise strode out of the kitchen.

“That girl, I swear,” she heard Rosemary say to Amanda as she walked out onto the patio.

As soon as she was out of Rosemary's view, she began to rub her temples, trying to pretend that she was elsewhere. And not just anywhere. Somewhere very specific. Somewhere where the wind was the whispers of the kindest moments of her past, the sky was the brightest azure and filled with planes flying erratically, each one scrawling a message to her in a craggy, urgent script, _I'm coming for you, Lou, You left teeth marks last time, I hope you will again, Did anyone ever tell you that you taste like honeysuckles?_

In that days that had passed since she had returned to L.S. from the desert, she had felt the strangest sensations and emotions and tiredness and mania. It was some kind of delicious hangover, a cloud she didn't want to come down from. And now here she was, trying to function, to make nice, to be out where the world could see her and hold her accountable for whatever it was she was doing.

“Hey, kid,” she heard Michael say, breaking her train of thought.

“Hi,” she said, smiling at him.

She strode to over to join him where he sat in a pool chair, seating herself on the end of it.

“How's the battle for kitchen supremacy?”

“Rose is such an asshole when she's in the kitchen,” she whispered at him.

He smiled and leaned his head back.

“Mother hens and their kitchen habits are nothing to be trifled with,” he chuckled.

“It's for the best. She needs to be in charge of everything or she will say the most venomous shit to whatever unfortunate soul she's critiquing...God she's been here forever.”

Michael took his sunglasses off and looked closely at her for a moment.

“What?” she asked him.

“You doin' okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You seem kind of far away.”

She smiled weakly at him.

“I'm fine.”

“You sure?”

“Michael,” she scolded quietly, looking away.

He pushed up from the back rest and moved to sit next to her.

“You're not still mad at me, are you?”

She laughed and looked at him.

“You are _so_ sensitive.”

“You're such a brat,” he replied.

Louise threw her head back and laughed at that and in doing so, she broke through some of the fog that was enveloping her. She looked at him, still smiling. He bit his lip and shook his head trying not to laugh back.

“I'm not mad at you,” she said suddenly. “I'm mad at myself.”

“Why?” Michael asked, his smile fading.

Louise rolled her head around her neck and sighed.

“I haven't been honest with myself. I don't think I'm cut out for my job. I think I need to take time off and do my own stuff for a while.”

Michael stared back at her. He looked a little...hurt? Like it hadn't been what he wanted to hear.

“Ugh, now what?” Louise said.

“Nothin',” he said, snapping out of it.

Louise would quickly discover that it wasn't _nothin'._

 

The four adults sat outside in the twilight. Rosemary and Amanda were jabbering on while Michael stared at Louise who was staring at the table. She was off in space again. And Michael could have guessed that she was on Planet Trevor even if she didn't want to admit it.

The truth was, after their little tiff on the beach that night, Michael had been scared shitless. He knew that look in her eye. He knew that cocksure attitude that she had shown him. It wasn't her attitude. Yeah, she could be a mouthy little chick when she wanted to be but that night it was different. She didn't block the blows he was throwing her with well-reasoned arguments or by showing him what an ass he was being. She didn't even care about showing him why she thought he was wrong. She was love-drunk and anyone with half a brain in their head could have seen it. And she'd fallen for someone who was going to drag her into a world of shit.

He hadn't been _following_ the two of them when he went to Sandy Shores. He had gone to see Trevor, who wasn't at the Vanilla Unicorn where he had last left him. He had only wanted to talk to him one more time, to see if he could get him to see things his way. And if he failed, he had resolved to leave it alone as best as he could. That was, until he saw them together.

He had been parked down the road a ways, not wanting to set foot in Trevor's trailer after having to bunk there all that time ago. He had watched and waited for his friend. He'd almost hadn't seen them. They had just kind of materialized out of the ether, but there was no mistaking Trevor Philips on that dusty street outside of his trailer. He watched them kissing and squeezing and pressing into each other. Trevor's hands all over her, touching her hair, looking like he wanted to consume her. It had made him sick to his stomach, but not for the reasons that it made him sick to think of his daughter getting diddled on a yacht in front of a camera. No, it made him sick because he had _seen_ Trevor with women.

When they were kids, they'd always gotten lucky after a score. There was never a shortage of women, ones that they had met in a bar or working girls...He'd seen Trevor with women. He'd seen him kiss and paw at them greedily. He'd seen how he looked at them. But it wasn't like that with Louise.

The way that Trevor looked at her and touched her and kissed her was different than Michael had ever seen him do. He was careful with her. It didn't look altogether lewd or wrong. And that's what scared the shit out of Michael. That somehow, it wasn't wrong. That Trevor really could have designs on something rather than absolute destruction and waste and satisfying his most base desires. He didn't want to see what would happen to either of them if they got too tangled up in it. Trevor was dangerous. And so was Louise.

He had so wanted for Louise to admit to him what she and Trevor had done. To ask for his advice. To let him throw her a lifeline of some type. But she didn't do that. And it had fucking hurt when she didn't.

Louise wordlessly got up from the table and started collecting plates. Amanda and Rosemary were still wrapped up in their conversation. Michael grabbed an armful of dishes and followed her into the kitchen where she started rinsing them under the faucet. He joined her at the counter where she handed him dishes to load into the dishwasher. He didn't bother to tell her that they paid someone to do this five days a week. When they were done, Michael poured her a glass of wine. She smiled as he handed it to her.

“You've been quiet,” he said.

“Sorry,” she said smiling. “I guess I just don't have much of an opinion on Tyler Dixon's new bod.”

Michael laughed.

“Yeah, no shit.”

“But now it's me and you, so we can talk about something else.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno. Are you working on anything at the studio?”

Michael raised his eyebrows at her.

“Since when are you so interested?”

Louise tilted her head at him.

“I'm interested in my _friends,_ Michael. Seriously, are you working on another movie?”

“Not at the moment, no.”

“Oh,” Louise said, taking a sip of wine. “Well then what have you been up to.”

Michael sighed.

“Just...doin' what I do...”

Louise narrowed her eyes at him.

“Which is?”

“Oh, ya know. Me and Amanda have been hittin' the tennis court a lot lately. Stuff like that.”

“Right on,” nodded Louise.

“I took a little trip recently.”

“Oh?” she asked lifting her wine glass to her lips.

“Yeah. Headed down to Sandy Shores a few days back.”

Louise gulped audibly. She stared up at him with wide eyes.

“You ever been there? It's quite a place,” he said staring back at her.

Louise narrowed her eyes at him. Her mouth straightened as she set her glass down on the counter and made for the door. Michael grabbed her arm.

“Oh no you don't,” he said firmly.

“Michael-”

“No! You are going to listen for a change, kid,” he barked, grabbing her by the shoulders now. “I saw you together, Louise. I fucking saw it with my own eyes!”

Louise's jaw was clenched as she breathed heavily out her nose.

“I didn't ask for this,” she said surprisingly quietly. “It just happened. I didn't mean for it to.”

" _Trevor fucking Philips_ takes no prisoners, Louise. I'm fucking _terrified_ for you,” Michael spat.

Just then, they heard gasping and looked over simultaneously to where Rosemary and Amanda stood side-by-side, each wearing their own shocked expression. Rosemary's was more angry while Amanda looked frightened, but it was plain that they had heard. Amanda stared at Louise.

“Trevor Philips? Oh my God, Louise.” Her voice became more resolute as she continued, walking to where Louise and Michael stood. “Do you have any idea what that man is capable of?”

Louise sighed. _Oh, good. Two more additions to the peanut gallery on her love life._

“It's not-”

“He is a monster, Louise! An absolute terror! You _can't_ be serious.”

“I concur,” said Rosemary. “He's already got you lyin' to your mother, hasn't he, Louise? You swore to me that you weren't seeing him!”

“Ugh, Mama, please,” Louise sighed, covering her face.

“Oh, don't you _mama, please_ me, child. I mean really!”

“Mother! Just stop...” Louise said before chuckling dryly, nervously, with no joy behind it.

She started backing out of the kitchen, leaving the three of them there in a line staring her down. She was at a loss now. She didn't have a lengthy apology or explanation for them. She didn't even have any anger left to give. She was tired of running in circles. So now she would run in a straight line instead, making a beeline for the front door, jogging out into the night, past the security gate, down the sidewalk, toward the boulevard, out of the state if she had to.

Louise walked stiffly down the street, narrowly avoiding getting struck by a car at the intersection just past Michael's house. She kept walking, though, hoping that she wouldn't be followed, wondering where she could go where they _couldn't_ follow.

The truth was, she hadn't found her own peace of mind. She had doubts and plenty of them. She didn't know where she fit into this world. She didn't know where her threshold was or how much she could stomach or what she could change, but it didn't make a difference. It didn't change the fact that when she was with Trevor, the world was less scary and awful, that he fulfilled her grandmother's prophecy in some bizarre way. She had gotten friendly with something scary, she had gone against everything that she stood for, every prediction that she had made for herself and she had gotten cozy with his darkness and in doing so, she had found light.

Louise walked for hours trying to clear her head. For what, she didn't know. She didn't know what the next step was. She made it all the way to Vinewood before her legs started to tingle with sidewalk fatigue. She leaned against a wall outside of a nightclub, but quickly became overwhelmed with the people whizzing past her and worse yet, the other people standing on the sidewalk, people her age. She heard their cacophonous bitching, all different gripes and yet all the same. _I can't get anyone to read my screenplay. I heard Al DiNapoli was in with the mob and that's why he got killed. My tits didn't turn out right. Do not go to Dr. Beals to get your tits done._

She ducked into a nearby alley and found a dumpster to hide behind. She crouched next to it and tried to tune out the noise in her head and the noise on the street, to forget why she was sitting in a dark, dank alleyway in her most reviled part of Los Santos. She didn't know how long she was sitting there before a dark sedan rolled up the alley. She tucked her legs closer to her chest, trying to make herself small thinking that somehow it would also make her invisible. She was tired all of a sudden, exhausted. She wanted to call a cab, but she'd left her purse at Michael's.

The sedan came to a stop in front of her. Someone got out of the driver's side and walked around to the other side where she was sitting. She was so lost in her own mind that it took her a moment for it to register that the driver of the sedan was now standing over her, looking right at her. A tall guy. Blonde with a sharp nose, narrow eyes, a thin mouth. She stood up.

“'Scuse me,” she muttered, making for the gap between his car and the dumpster.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her back toward him. She collided backwards into his body and immediately started struggling. _Fuck._

“Louise, I presume?” she heard him say before he covered her mouth and it all went black.

 

 

Louise opened her eyes, blinking hard against the floaters and bleariness that coated her vision. The first thing she perceived was the smell. An unfamiliar car with leather upholstery. Her vision cleared a little bit and she looked down to see her wrists bound in handcuffs chained to the handle of the passenger side door. She was dizzy and her lips were numb. She looked over to the driver and it took her what seemed like forever to try and remember what had gotten her to this point. Blonde hair. Sharp nose. Narrow eyes. Thin mouth. He looked over at her.

“Oh, you're awake,” he said almost as if they were friends on a road trip. “Guess I used just the right amount of Deludamol.”

Louise regained the feeling in her arms and started yanking on the hand cuffs.

“Ah ah ah,” the man chided. “Knock it off, Louise. You can't fight child safety locks when you're hands are chained up.”

Louise suddenly detected an accent. East coast.

“You know, I was really worried that you were going to be a biter or something. I mean, how many times can one chick get kidnapped before she turns into a rabid fuckin' squirrel at the faintest touch?” he laughed.

“Who the fuck are you?” Louise slurred quietly.

“Who me? Aw, I didn't think you cared,” he cooed at her. “Well, Louise, my name is Kieran. Kieran O'Dell. And I am the only living brother of the guy that you got killed a few months ago. Gavin? Remember him?” he spat.

“Gavin,” she repeated. He grunted. “I didn't get Gavin killed. He got himself killed. He was a ruthless fuckin' thug.”

Kieran swerved hard, sending Louise's head colliding with the passenger side window.

“Ow, fuck!” she yelled.

“I'd be careful about how you talk about the deceased, Louise. I mean, aren't you even the slightest bit worried about meeting your maker? It won't be long now before you're answering to a power greater than yourself.”

Louise's senses were coming back to her, slowly. Quickly enough that her stomach sank at what he was suggesting.

“I didn't get your brother killed, Kieran. They didn't catch the guys that did it...”

Kieran clucked at her. He was young, she realized all of a sudden. Maybe younger than her.

“Yeah, but it's a little weird that the only people that walked out of that warehouse alive were you and that computer geek, isn't it?”

His sarcasm was a deranged one. She recognized it now. It had been the same deranged tone that Gavin had used. She looked at him closer. He was even dressed like Gavin had been. Black leather jacket over black slacks. Black on black.

“I don't know what happened to your brother, man, but I had nothing to do with it. What you're doing is...It's crazy.”

“On the contrary, Louise, this is the sanest I've felt since I got the call that my brother had been shot to death in a warehouse in L.S.”

Louise sighed, her head smarting where it had hit the window.

“What the fuck is this going to achieve, huh? Swiping some girl from a fuckin' alleyway? You are _such_ an amateur.”

Louise must have been concussed or something because she only half-realized how brazen she was, how, instead of taking that safe route that they always teach you in self-defense where you humanize yourself and placate your abductor, she was taking a more novel one. She was treating him like an amateur, as if she knew so much about the criminal underworld that she could use their sneaky but bull-headed techniques to get her way.

He pulled off the main road suddenly, headed off the beaten path, up a mountain.

“I'll tell you what it's going to achieve, you mouthy little bitch. You and I are going to have a little one-on-one. A rap. And you are going to tell me who your accomplices were if I have to rip every single one of your teeth out of your pretty little head to get the answers I want.”

Every moment that passed was making Louise a little more frightened. His intimidation tactic was an effective one, but she was already devising ways to make him back off without torturing her.

“I don't have any accomplices, Kieran. I'm guessing that you did your homework on me, right?”

Kieran's eyes shifted between her and the bumpy mountain road.

“What do you mean?” he asked tentatively.

Louise gaped at him.

“Like finding out who your target is! What they do for a living, where they live! I mean you found me, right?”

Kieran was shaking a little now.

“I followed that lady out of your house. That old blonde lady. She led me to you.”

Louise shook her head at him.

“That's not my house, Gavin. I haven't lived there in over a year. It was a fucking fluke that that lady was staying there and that she and I are acquainted. But you could have just as easily been led to some fuckin' bingo hall in Vespucci Beach, _guy.”_

“Shut the fuck up,” he said firmly.

“I'm a fucking _art teacher,_ dude. I don't have any connections with any fucking criminals now that my husband is dead. But you don't know that because you didn't vet me before you swiped me.”

His face was pallid now. He looked like he was sweating. He was twitching, too.

“And another thing? Your brother pistol whipped me and knocked me out before the other shooters showed up to the warehouse. I didn't see who they were. For all I know...It could have been the _FIB_. They were all over that like a cheap suit, ya know? 'Cause Greg was working for them? The investigation is still open. The _FIB_ calls me on the regular, asking questions. I've even kind of become friends with one of them. He is in _very regular_ contact with me, Kieran.”

Kieran's breaths were coming out as quiet heaves as he tried to control himself. He was scared, Louise could tell. But she couldn't tell if that was working to her advantage.

He gunned it up the last stretch of the mountain before he stopped the car and wordlessly hopped out. Louise watched him in the headlights. She thought that he would come right over to her side of the car and yank her out, but he hesitated in front of the car. He stopped and paced fervently for a minute before he screamed. It was a savage, animalistic, guttural scream. Even though it was muffled through the windshield of the car, Louise knew that it was a sound that only primal fear could produce. He began kicking the front bumper of the car and even though his legs were skinny, he sent her rocking back and forth in her seat. She was scared now. Truly, truly scared.

He walked stiffly over to her side and pulled the door open, pulling her out with it. She hadn't had time to react and so she just spilled out face first, hanging now by the open door, her feet still hooked inside the car. Kieran hoisted her up and she heard a jangling in his pocket. He extracted a handcuff key and unhooked her from the door handle before shoving her forward, sending her into the dirt.

“Get up,” be barked at her, though it was a superfluous demand as he immediately grabbed her up by the shoulders.

Louise walked in front of him, down toward a bluff. She could hear the ocean suddenly and she could tell where they were now. Mount Gordo. By the cliffs. She stopped and turned to face him. He had extracted a concealed pistol from the waist of his pants and he was holding it now. The moon was full and bright, so bright and so huge that she could see the frightened look in his eye tinged with rage. He was pale and sweaty.

“You don't have to do this-”

“Shut the fuck up, bitch! Just-” He cut himself off. “Walk,” he said, gesturing to the cliff.

Louise froze and stared at him. She could feel herself shaking now. They stood and stared at each other for a minute before he strode over to her and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her toward the cliff's edge now. “You and everyone you know is fucking scum, Louise! You're fucking nothing!” he screamed at her, edging her toward the cliff, brandishing that gun.

“Kieran,” she said, his name like a hymn to her now. She'd met him less than an hour ago but she wanted to know him if only to know what made him tick so that he wouldn't throw her or shoot her. She wanted to live.

She thought of Trevor then. About how warm he made her feel. About how conflicted he made her feel. How that conflict was boiling over inside of her and making her doubt everything. And yet how she savored that. The agony and the ecstasy of wanting him and feeling like she needed him, of the reasons she couldn't stay away and the reasons she knew she should.

Of Franklin and his fatal honesty that he wore on his sleeve, of how he trotted that honesty out and also offered it as a mercy to the people that fell at his feet, cursing his name, simultaneously telling him that he wasn't good enough and that he was _too_ good. How he some how navigated those perfectly conflicting messages with his uniquely Franklin brand of brilliance, always coming out on top somehow, on the right side of history.

Of Michael. Michael. How he had projected all of his failures as a father onto her but how somehow it hadn't felt that way a lot of the time. How he had tried to tell her what to do without meaning to. How he had tried to do right by her in the most commanding, least well-conceived ways. All the things he wanted to say and couldn't find the words for. How the last interaction that they had had was not how either of them would have wanted to end things. No pier, no beach, no early morning greasy-spoon diner wisdom to be had there.

Michael. Franklin. Trevor.

Kieran paced up and down the cliff, sometimes stealing a glance at Louise, seemingly to remind himself of who he hated, who his hurt proxy was while intermittently betraying such regret at all of his rookie mistakes. He had never killed anyone before. He wasn't a thug like his brother. Louise breathed heavily.

She could feel regret, too. But not like his. Hers was at what she could have if she wasn't here now. Kieran's was at what he didn't have anymore.

“Nobody is going to find you, you filthy bitch! They'll never find a body to bury!”

Louise stared at him for a moment before she felt a heady calm come over her. She could have sworn that it was something in the air, something setting the atmosphere abuzz, making it come alive, making all of that fear evaporate.

It was a woman's calm. Nothing any man could ever bring to the table. Like her mother holding her head in her lap when she was poorly. Or a close friend holding her hand over a cup of tea. Warm and musky and absolute and outside of herself.

_Push him, Louise._

It wasn't like a voice that you could hear with your ear holes. It was a voice that you could only hear in the center of your chest. Lighting you up like a Christmas tree. Dancing and swimming inside of your skin.

_Push him. Push him before he takes you out._

Kieran's gun was rattling in his hand. It looked less like a cannon trained at her now and more like an empty promise. Of something conditional.

_This is your chance. Do it now._

Louise felt weightless now. Like force, gravity and motion were her subordinates, as easily manipulated as foil or pipe cleaners. Bending to her very whims. To her needs.

Her legs carried her forward, fast and infinite. She caught a glimpse of Kieran, raising that imperfect cannon to her body; her body made perfect by whatever invisible force that had pushed her toward him.

She shoulder checked him, sending him stumbling backward. He fired a shot. It whizzed right past her or above her. Anywhere but through her. He kept stumbling backward, completely at the mercy of the universal properties that had shown her such generosity and protection in the preceding moments until there was no more ground left behind him and he careened off the cliff. Or he probably did. Louise couldn't see him. She was feet away from the edge of the cliff. She didn't hear him scream, just saw his body go horizontal before it disappeared.

She sat for a moment, taking in what she had seen. And then she felt an intense and all-engrossing coldness come over her. She shuddered and let out a rasping, desperate howl before she started sobbing.

It hadn't been the universal laws acting _on_ her mind. Her will had accepted a dance with them. With those laws and that ineffable voice. And the dance had sent Kieran over the cliff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. Well, how about that, huh? I will try to update as soon as I can. The wheels are turning a little bit now :)


	8. Chapter 8

Trevor sat on the hood of his truck in Chumash, looking out toward the water, watching the waves roll in and out of that sparsely populated beach. He was parked by a specific length of beach where he had been before. Where he had once watched her exorcising her cabin fever, playing tag with the swelling tide. Where she had very subtly but obviously (obvious to him, that is) compared him to the ocean. How you could always count on it to pull things in, to wash them away, every day no matter what.

He had awoken a few hours earlier in a cold sweat. He had been dreaming. He didn't dream all that often, besides the occasional bizarre wet dream. He reckoned that it was what made him so...so much like him. He never had the mind-purging sleep, so he had to do the purging in his waking life. And that purging had cost more than one person their skin.

He had dreamed in flashes. First thing he saw was her, with her back turned to him. She was in a field under a giant sky. When she finally turned around, he could see her holding a snake. A smallish snake, slowly wrapping itself around her arm. She had a gentle look on her face. She didn't smile, but her look was one like she was trying to lull him, to keep his fire low. He wanted to go closer to her but when he did the vision was sucked away and replaced.

Now she was under his feet. He looked down and saw her in the mud, wearing nothing more than a slip and now a bigger, wetter, meaner looking snake wrapped itself all around her body. Her face was frozen, but there were tears coming out of her eyes. And he couldn't go to her then, either, even though she was there. Right _fucking_ there, he couldn't reach out to her.

He hadn't heard from her in over three days. She hadn't responded to a single one of his messages in that time and he'd got to thinking that she had gotten gun-shy all of a sudden after they'd fucked. She'd been into it then, but maybe after he'd taken her home she'd thought better of it, had come to her senses finally. The dream changed that. Something was wrong.

He'd looked for her. He couldn't find her, so he came here for lack of a better idea. He was anxious and _that_ was making him angry. He'd come to realize how little he knew about her life, who she kept with, who her friends were. He had gone to see Lester, too, to get some insight, but that little fucker was MIA, too.

His phone rang just then, and his heart galloped a little bit. He pulled the thing out of his pocket and was disappointed to see that it was Michael.

“Sugar tits, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

_T, is Louise with you?_

“Ugh, did you call to scold me for keeping her out past curfew, ya fuck?”

_This is serious, T. Nobody's seen her in over two days. She didn't show up to work and she left her purse at my house. Is she with you? I ain't trying to jam you up, man._

Trevor felt a lump forming in his throat. His heart rate climbed suddenly. “What do you mean she's missing, Michael? What the fuck happened?” She left my house a couple of days ago. She was kind of upset, but this ain't like her, T. She wouldn't do this.

“Have you talked to Lester about this?”

_It's kind of worthless without a cell signal, man. Her phone is in her purse. So is her wallet, her keys, everything. She's untraceable right now._

Trevor was in his truck now, starting the engine, ready to gun it to the city.

“I'm coming to yours. Have you gotten Norton in on this?”

_Dave heard as soon as Louise's mother filed the report. He's on it, T._

“Don't go anywhere. I'll be there soon.”

 

 

Trevor walked into Michael's house and immediately set about pacing. Michael matched him in kind by twitching his leg, hunched over on the couch.

“What fucking loose end did we forget, Mikey? There has to be something. She wouldn't just disappear like this...”

Michael shook his head.

“I dunno, T.”

“You said she was upset. What was she upset about?”

He could hear his own tenor, something that fell half-way between analytical and defensively sarcastic. Brusque and urgent. Michael sighed deeply, but apparently, he was none too interested in concealing or massaging the truth as he had so many times.

“I got on her case about the two of you.”

Trevor stopped pacing and looked at Michael, sucking his teeth.

“What did you say to her?”

“Nothing I haven't said a million times since this started, T,” he replied tersely.

Trevor clenched his fist and started pacing again.

“Nobody in my wide circle of enemies would have any reason to tie me to her. What about yours, Mikey? That Mexican prick...You done anything to draw fire from him lately?”

Michael shot up from his seat.

“No, T, nothing. None of this makes any fucking sense.”

“What did the cops find at her house?”

“Nothing, not according to Dave. He went and combed the place himself. Nothing was askew.”

“Fuck.”

The two of them had reached some kind of non-verbal cease-fire. Each of them knew that they had nothing to gain from being at each other's throats.

Dave Norton appeared in the doorway of the living room a few quiet moments later. Trevor and Michael both turned to look at him.

“Before you ask, I haven't heard anything new. There's a tri-state BOLO in effect for her, though, so the net is cast pretty wide. She couldn't have gotten too much farther than that and they would have clocked her already at the airport unless she had a very convincing fake I.D. I'm guessing that she wouldn't have any reason to pull anything like that though, right?”

Trevor walked to where Dave was standing.

“Even if she did, she wouldn't take off without talking to _me_ first.”

Dave stared blankly.

“That's what I thought...” he said. “Tell me, Trevor. What is the nature of your relationship with Louise Robataille?”

“What the fuck is it to you?”

“What it is to me, Trevor, is the difference between life and death, assuming that Louise is still alive...”

Trevor and Michael both winced.

“...And while I have turned the other cheek to your myriad of illegal activities, I can't say the same for the filthy fucking cross-section of humanity that _you've_ pissed off.”

Trevor bit his lip and clenched his fist, wanting little more than to clock this motherfucker, but knowing full-well that they were meant to be allies at the moment.

“There's no conceivable way that any potential enemies of mine could tie me to her.”

Norton glared at him.

“Good to know.”

 

 

Franklin chucked the tennis ball yet again, for the millionth time. And each time Chop ran after it, the city lights pulled his gaze outward, out across that vast, concrete expanse as he worried and wondered. His grandma used to tell him that if someone you knew was close by, if you tried hard enough, you could feel them. He'd blown her off in his adolescence, chalking it up to her fatal sentimentality.

When his moms would disappear for days at a time, there was no telltale feeling to let him know that she was around. She could have been in motherfuckin' Timbuktu for all he knew, though he knew that there was always a smoking party not too far from where he slept at night in his second-hand race car bed.

Now he let his eyes travel slowly over the urban sprawl and the skyscrapers looking for some kind of sign. But the only sign that he could perceive was his colossal fucking guilt.

Chop returned a quick minute later carrying the ball in his mouth, but when he dropped it at Franklin's feet, he quickly turned his back on him, indicating that he was done. He plopped down and looked out toward the city as well. Franklin snorted at the sight. He'd heard that dogs were the only domestic pets that would follow your gaze and he found mild amusement but also a twinge of sadness wondering if Chop was looking for the same sign, if he knew that something was amiss. He shook the thought away and he looked over the city one more time. He picked up the ball and turned on his heel.

“C'mon, Chop,” he said.

He started walking and only got a few feet before he realized that his canine companion was not following. He turned around and looked at the dog, who was still seated, staring outward.

“I said c'mon, boy!”

He saw Chop's ears twitch at his command, but he didn't come to Franklin. Instead he got up and started trotting farther down the hill. His gait was slow and tentative. Franklin sighed and started to follow him. _Probably another fuckin' dog down there somewhere._

Each time he approached the dog, he trotted a little faster, trying to dodge Franklin's attempts to catch him by the collar. _This fuckin' dog._ _One step forward two steps back._

Chop stopped suddenly and sniffed at the ground for a minute before he started pawing it. Sniff, paw, sniff, paw. After a minute of this, just as Franklin was getting ready to grab him, Chop backed away. Franklin looked at the ground.

He saw the hole first, barely bigger than a silver dollar, before he saw the head and then the body. Scaly and mechanical writhing out of the hole.

“Shit!” Franklin hissed, grabbing Chop by the collar.

Chop resisted Franklin's efforts to pull him away. He backed up a couple of steps, but otherwise he wouldn't budge, his eyes fixed on the snake. _I should'a gotten him that motherfuckin' snake aversion training_.

Franklin looked over at the snake now too. The little fucker wasn't rattling. His fat little body just coiled up a few feet away from them. Franklin let go of the dog, who just stood there, wagging his little nub of a tail. Both of them watched the snake for a minute before it writhed and uncoiled itself, crawling off up the hill in the other direction.

Franklin's senses were keyed up now. He could hear his blood rushing out of his ears now as his heart rate slowed. He backed up now, slowly, not hearing any rattling or hissing. He exhaled sharply and turned around.

“Time to go, Chop,” he said.

Chop followed this time.

 

 

Michael sat out on the patio. He was more than a little buzzed now, choosing the path to sweet oblivion at the bottom of a bottle to calm his jaunty nerves. It didn't seem to be doing much, however. His head was swimming but he couldn't forget how helpless he felt.

Amanda had been blissfully unaware of this pass time, spending an abundance of the daylight hours over at Greg's, keeping an eye on Rosemary. Rosemary, who hadn't seemed hysterical, but stared off into space, no doubt entertaining the worst possible scenarios behind her eyes.

Michael shuffled over to a lawn chair and laid down in the sun, setting his whiskey on a table beside him. He reclined and closed his eyes. Ninety six hours had now passed and almost anyone would tell you that this was an abysmal sign. There was very little any of them could do. It was even outside Lester's level of creativity, so all they could do was wait.

But Michael couldn't put down his immense guilt at the fact that he was in the sun in a lounge chair sucking down whiskey like it was water when she could have been anywhere, being starved or beaten or...

He couldn't think about that. Hell, he didn't really want to think about anything. He was a man of action on his best days and if he'd had even an inkling of who might have taken her or where she might be, well that would have been a hell of a day to say the least.

He closed his eyes and tried to push past all the thoughts that snapped at his brain like firecrackers, pulling him out of whatever bare minimum level of calm that he could bring over himself. He breathed deep and tried to think about anything else because nothing was helpful. He felt himself starting to drift off.

 

_Michael looked around at his surroundings, trying to figure out where it was that he was. It was familiar. Very familiar. A diner. He was in a booth with a pendant light hanging over head, the table had a full napkin dispenser, two place settings, two cups of coffee. The diner in Chumash._

_It looked empty. He couldn't see another human soul. No waitstaff, nobody in the kitchen, but he could hear fryers and running water and clanging dishes and voices. He looked back toward the kitchen, trying to figure out where the noises were coming from, but he couldn't see anything. He tried craning his neck farther, but he couldn't see anything behind him either. He turned back toward the table and was startled to see someone sitting there across from him._

_Louise._

_Louise, who wore the same button up dress and denim jacket that she had that morning all those months ago, with her long bangs sides wept, held in place by a bobby pin on the side of her bedhead. She stared at him intently._

_“Louise,” he said softly._

_She smiled faintly at him._

_“Hiya.”_

_“What are you doing here?”_

_Her smile grew._

_“What are you doing here?” she countered._

_“I guess I'm here to see you,” he said, confused._

_“Me too.” She leaned over on her elbows._

_They stared for a moment, drinking each other in, it seemed, though Louise in this place like this...It wasn't like she was here. She seemed too far away for him to see what she might have been thinking or feeling. If she was thinking or feeling at all._

_“Are you dead?” he asked her suddenly._

_Louise seemed taken aback by the question. She sat back against her bench and looked past him, contemplative now._

_“I don't think so?” she said._

_“Then where are you?”_

_She narrowed her eyes, deep in thought._

_“I dunno. It smells like...antiseptic. I keep seeing shadows...”_

_“What else?” Michael demanded._

_“My name is Jane here...”_

_Michael sighed._

_“What happened, Louise?”_

_Louise looked at him now, wearing an expression of close-mouthed concern._

_“I...I did something bad, Michael. I didn't mean to-”_

_Just then a waitress shuffled up to them and wordlessly put a covered tray on the table between them before shuffling off._

_“What is this?” Michael said, reaching for the lid._

_Louise slammed her hand down on top of his, stopping him from taking the lid off. He looked up at her. She was wearing a frightened expression and shaking her head._

_“Don't open that, Michael. You're not ready. You're not...” she trailed off._

_Michael looked back at her. Her eyes were wide and the lightest green now._

_“Why?”_

_“Michael...”_

_“Louise, let me see.”_

_She shook her head fast now with pursed lips. She looked like a scared little kid._

_“No,” she whimpered._

_“Louise!”_

_Her eyes were pleading with him, but she retracted her hand slowly, never taking her eyes off of him._

_“Michael...I know that you believe in good guys and bad guys. I know you think I'm good, but if you look, you're going to see that it's not that simple. Everything you think you know...It will change. You won't think of me the same way...”_

_Michael looked at her for another moment, at her wide eyes, tearing up now, begging him not to look._

_"You spent so long feeling guilty about everything. You still do. It's so fucking obvious. Understanding everything...It needs to come to you slowly. If you figure it out all at once, you could end up in here with me. You need to be gentle with yourself, Michael..."_

_He pulled the lid off and looked down._

_It took a moment for it to register. He didn't react to it right away. It was still at first. And then it moved. The snake shot toward his body in one lithe move._

 

 

Michael startled awake, letting out an audible gasp. He was sitting bolt upright in the pool chair now.

“What the fuck!” he yelled.

He stared straight forward for a second, panting and gasping before he looked over to see Dave Norton standing there looking at him with his hand on his hip.

“I was wondering when you'd wake up,” Dave said.

“Davey,” Michael said, standing up to meet him.

He was still panting a little bit. He rubbed his eyes.

“You alright, Michael? You look spooked.”

“What are you doing here, Dave, what's going on?” Michael demanded.

Dave's face got serious.

“We found her, Michael.”

Michael's face fell. His eyes flitted all around Dave's face.

“And?”

“She's alive.”

 

 

“She was spotted by some people driving along Braddock Pass. She had handcuffs on one of her wrists. All of her wounds are superficial, some cuts, bruises and the like. There were no signs of sexual assault, no trauma...”

The doctor rattled off the details of Louise's state to Dave and Michael (Michael having gained access through Dave having gotten him false clearances under an inactive agent's name). The three of them walked down the hall.

“She was admitted in a stupor. Tox-screen turned up some Deludamol but nothing else. We ran some MRIs. It doesn't appear to be organic, but rather an acute state and her medical records don't suggest anything irregular with her mental health history. Unfortunately, when she did start responding to external stimuli, she seemed to be experiencing an acute psychosis, so we've had to keep her medicated. She's not lucid right now, so you're not going to get anything of use out of her.”

“We need to see her,” Dave said.

“She's an integral part of an open case.”

“Alright,” said the doctor. “But I'm telling you, she's not going to be of much use until we can taper her off the meds.”

They rounded a corner in the sterile, white hospital and eventually found their way to a private room. The doctor turned to face them once more.

“Are you sure you wouldn't rather come back another time. The plan is to incrementally lower the dose. Forty eight hours from now, she should be in a much more clear state of mind.”

“This happens now,” said Dave firmly.

 

The doctor opened the door to the room before Michael interjected. “Wait,” he said. The doctor turned to him. “When you say psychotic state...I mean...What does that mean? What was she doing?”

The doctor thought for a moment.

“Well, Agent Holstead, it's hard to be specific about it...She seemed to think that she was talking to her father and grandmother at various points but my understanding is that her father and grandmother have both been deceased for some time.”

He opened the door and strode in, stopping at the door to let Dave and Michael pass. Dave hung back and allowed Michael to go to her side. The doctor excused himself. Louise was laying on her side, crumpled in an awkward position with her head crooked downward and her arm between her legs, which were pulled up to her chest. Michael pulled up the chair beside her bed.

“Louise,” he said softly.

Louise's eyes were half open. She was still save for her light breathing.

“Louise, it's me. It's Michael. Can you hear me, kid?”

Louise's mouth was moving.

She seemed to be struggling to make words but after a moment.

“Mi...Mi...”

“Easy...”

She was quiet again for a moment, her eyes fluttering a little. She couldn't have looked more asleep if she had actually been asleep.

“Their...brands,” she slurred.

Michael pricked up his ears, trying to listen closely.

...“Were still on fire and their hooves were made of steel...”

She was singing.

“...Their horns were black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel...”

It was slurred and glacially slow, but she was definitely singing.

“A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky...For he saw the riders comin' hard and he heard their mournful cries...”

Michael looked back at Dave.

“Ghostriders In the Sky,” said Dave flatly, looking past Michael at Louise.

Michael looked back to her and saw her eyes open a little more.

“I'm so sorry...I didn't know what to do. He was going to throw me...I had to do something...And the voice was...voice was...”

“Louise?”

It wasn't a half a minute later before she started making a smacking noise with her tongue on the top of her mouth and her eyes started rolling back in her head. Michael shot out of his seat.

“Fuck!” he said as he saw her convulsing.

“We need a doctor in here!”

 

 

“Michael, relax, the doctor said that chlorpromazine reactions aren't all that uncommon. She's going to be fine.”

“Those inept fucking doctors doped her up so much that they gave her a fuckin' seizure, Davey! Forgive me if that doesn't exactly inspire confidence!” Michael yelled.

Dave sighed.

“Did you call Trevor yet?”

Michael looked over from the passenger seat to Dave.

“What's it to you?”

“Come on, Michael. You know he won't be terribly pleased if he finds out you're withholding information about her...” Michael rolled his eyes. “Besides,” Dave said, clearing his throat. “Much as I'm loathe to admit it, he does seem to care about her. Crazy fuck deserves to know that she's okay...”

 

“She's in Ward D on the third floor. She's still pretty loopy, sleeps a lot so you probably won't be able to talk to her. But her chart says she's going to be discharged next week at the latest.”

Brandon or Brendan or whatever looked up at Trevor. He was a scrawny little guy, about five foot six with slicked back hair.

“You still wanna see her, though, right? I mean...You're not going to renege on our deal? I really need the cash,” he said.

“Naw, short shit, I ain't backin' out now,” Trevor replied through gritted teeth, tousling the kid's hair.

Brandon or Brendan recoiled at his touch and looked at him with mild terror in his eyes.

“So, uh, ten thousand, then?” Trevor rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, you'll get the rest of your money as long as your ID badge works the way it's 'spose to.”

Brandon or Brendan or Brent handed the badge over to him.

“Look, if you get made, lose my ID? I need this job...”

Trevor ignored him and adjusted himself in the scrubs he was wearing, which were just a little too small on him. This wasn't his preferred method of doing things. If he had it his way, he'd go in guns a blazin' wreaking absolute havoc on this bullshit medical establishment and every single puppet that worked inside of it. But he had to go the subtle approach this time around.

“Ward D, third floor,” what's-his-fuck repeated as he backed away, disappearing around the corner of the building.

Trevor made his way into the building, keeping his head down. He passed lots of crisp white coats and exhausted mop-topped nurses on his way to where Louise was meant to be.

Finally, he arrived at a set of double doors with a swipe-pad off to the side. He quickly swiped the ID through and saw a green light blink on in place of the red one that had been there before. He pushed through the doors and waded through the small sea of overworked zombies until he got to a room with a closed door.

He looked to the side to see her name placard stuck to the wall beside the door. He quietly pushed in, shutting the door behind him. Louise was on her side, sleeping peacefully, clutching a pillow to her chest.

He gingerly walked over to her and sat in a chair beside her bed before he glanced back toward the door. The hospital bracelet around her wrist was too big for her. Her hair was a mess. Her eyebrows were pulled inward like she was thinking in her sleep. When he reached out and wiggled her wrist to see if she'd wake up, her expression softened and she groaned softly, readjusting her pillow.

“Hey, Lou,” he said. “I heard you had a psychotic break. Welcome to my world,” he snorted. “It's a fuckin' trip ain't it? One minute you're fine and then somethin' happens and before you know it, everything goes all fucky and you don't know where you are or what the fuck you're doing...”

It was better this way, he decided. No tears, no begging. He could say his piece without her pulling him back into her web. It was an inviting web, to be sure, but...

“I hear you're still all doped up. It would be nice to be able to talk to you, but I guess this is as good as I'm gonna fuckin' get, so listen up...”

He stirred in the chair.

“Uh...since you had to go and get yourself stolen _again_ and then go all fuckin' crazy...”

Trevor sighed heavily.

_Thank fuck her eyes were closed. If he had to look into those eyes right now..._

“Me and Mikey and Frank were talkin' and we decided that it's time that we let you get back to your life. Your nice life. The one without kidnappings and crazy fuckers...”

Louise sighed.

“Because fuck knows you deserve better than this, okay? I know you think that you and me can make something happen...Er, actually, I guess I don't know what you think about that because we never got around to talking about logistics after we had a couple of rounds of some of the finest sex either of us have had in our adult lives...But even so...”

Trevor felt a spike of pain in his chest. He swallowed against it, but he was finding that even that was a feat.

“I think it's time that I let you go. 'Cause you deserve better. Than me, I mean.”

He sighed against the pain now, but it was still climbing up to his throat.

“But before I go, I just wanted to let you know that...I'll always be watching. If anyone fucks with you, I'll rip their fuckin' spine out by the tailbone. No matter where you are, you don't have to worry about any of that so, just do what you do.”

Trevor felt his breath catch in his chest when he looked at her eyes fluttering. He was worried that they were about to open, but he realized that she must have been dreaming. She clutched his thumb in her hand now. He cleared his throat.

“So, I want you to be a good girl. Try not to get yourself into any more shit, okay? And if you meet a guy...Ya, know, make sure he's not a complete dickbag. Make sure he's good to you.”

He leaned over and pressed his lips to her forehead. He let them linger there a moment, feeling her clammy skin on his mouth before he planted one there.

“Have a nice life, baby.”

Louise let out a hard sigh through her nose and furrowed her brow again. Her voice was raspy with sleep when she spoke.

“...Find you, Trev...I'll...I'll find you...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hi, how are you? What have I been up to you ask? Oh, nothin' just breaking my own heart. But I will mend it with part three of this series, don't you worry about that :) P.S. this would be the second to last chapter of this installment.


	9. Chapter 9

“The body's gone by now, Agent Norton,” Louise said flatly.

They were in a quiet cafe in Vespucci Beach, tucked in a corner where nobody could hear them.

“Louise, we have to be sure,” he said quietly. “Are you sure that there's no way anyone could have seen?”

Louise studied her fingernails.

“I'm quite certain there wasn't another living human soul up there. But if it makes you feel better, I can tell you on a map where we were and you can climb down that treacherous ass cliff and see for yourself,” she said.

Agent Norton leaned back in his chair and stared at her.

“I'm looking out for all of us...”

“I know that but it's hard for me to be too nervous about it when I know absolutely that he's probably shark food by now. And the car...” she sighed, “I sent that over the cliff, too.”

“That could be a problem,” he said.

Louise really didn't care. Four weeks had passed. She'd kept an idle ear on the news to see if anyone had discovered either to the body or the car but as she'd said, that bluff was too treacherous for even the most savvy adventurer. Boaters didn't even go under those cliffs for fear of rock slides.

“I told you I'd tell you where we were.”

“Fair enough,” Dave said.

Louise looked up at him, surprised now.

“What, no fight? No arm twisting?”

Dave snorted.

“I'm not about to try your luck for you, Louise. Your doctor says that you've made a full and miraculous recovery. I don't want to be the one to send you back to that hospital.”

Dave wasn't wrong. Her case had been anomalous. An almost petty adventure deep into the deep recesses of her own psyche. Petty if she hadn't learned so much, if it hadn't given her great sight. And now that she wasn't drugged up, she could think straight again, maybe straighter than she ever had in her entire life.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Dave smirked.

Louise looked up at him.

“I'm thinking that you could stand to have a woman in your life, Agent Norton and I know a lot of woo-able single ladies that I could fix you up with,” she said with a wry smile.

“You'd subject your friends to me?” he asked sarcastically. “You're not much of a friend, are you?”

“Who said anything about them being my friends?”

“Are you doing okay?”

Louise rolled her eyes.

“If I never hear those words again it will be too soon.”

Dave looked at her with a pitiful expression.

“Then be honest with me and maybe I won't ask again.”

“I'm okay. I'm a little pissed off, but I'm okay.”

Dave draped his arm across his bench.

“They weren't trying to abandon you, Louise. They have good intentions.”

“Here's hoping they don't hit any road construction on the way to hell...”

“Remind me never to piss you off, little lady.”

“Never piss me off, Dave.”

“So, what's next for you?”

Louise must have had a shit-eating grin plastered across her face at that moment because Dave shot her a warning look before he continued.

“Whatever you're thinking, I'm not sure I like it,” he said flatly.

“Cool it, man. It's nothing sinister.”

“Our definition of sinister is not the same as the general population's, Louise.”

“I'm going back to work for Solomon. My little episode effectively blocked me from getting another gig with kids and as much as I'd love to sit in my house and paint, I need some structure. Somewhere to be every day, ya know?”

“Don't tell me that you're going back to being his desk candy?”

“Naw. Script supervisor,” she said smiling.

Dave stroked his chin and shot her a _not bad_ look. They were quiet for a minute before Dave spoke up again.

“You're not going to try to reach out to the guys again, are you? Michael was pretty explicit about not wanting any harm to come to you.”

“I don't have to reach out to them, Dave. There are things bigger than ourselves at work.”

“Vague threats don't really tickle my fancy, Louise. It was an honest question.”

“I gave you an honest answer,” she said, playing with her drinking straw. “I figured it out after the, uh, incident with Kieran.” She sighed and looked Dave in the eye. “See, for a long time, I thought that I just had this cloud hanging over my head. Like...I was being punished for something and that's why all this shit kept raining down on me. But now? Now I know that there's only so much you can do to make your own path in this world. Because even your will, which you think is all yours, that will carry you to your self-designed destiny? That is a force all on it's own. You don't always get to decide which way it bends. We create ties that can't be undone by our own hands. You should know that better than anyone...So as far as I'm concerned? I don't have to reach too far to find them. We'll find each other. And something tells me it won't be too long before that happens...”

 

 

_The summer immediately after Louise turned sixteen, she was crouched down in the grass in front of her grandmother's house, listening and watching for movement. The whole “lawn” if you could call it that was little more than crab grass with some nettles sticking out here and there._

_The sun was setting now and Louise's calves were getting tired. She turned toward the little house to see her grandmother smirking at her from the porch._

_“Looking for an old friend, my girl?”_

_Louise could feel her face going red. She couldn't keep anything from her grandmother._

_“How many times have you been back here since you first saw that snake and this is the first time that you're looking for him again? You must really need some protection...”_

_Louise joined her grandmother on the porch and looked out toward the tree line._

_“No, I don't need to be protected. I just need an old friend right now. The new ones are giving me a rash.”_

_The old woman chuckled and touched her granddaughter's cheek. She pulled a pipe and a little bag of tobacco out of her housecoat. She shook as she tried to light a match, so Louise helped her light her pipe._

_“New friends take some getting used to. How's things with that boy you've been seeing?”_

_Louise sighed._

_“They're okay.”_

_“Are you in love?”_

_Louise gulped._

_“I dunno.”_

_“Well, that's okay. You don't need to mess with that right now. You're young.”_

_They were quiet for a minute, watching the sun take its leave of them for the day._

_“Do you think my snake friend is still alive?” Louise asked looking over at her grandmother._

_She smiled warmly at Louise._

_“I don't know, my girl. He could be. If he made it this long, he's probably out in the swamp getting fat on deer carcasses.”_

_Louise shuddered._

_“But I'm sure he's still humble,” Louise said more to herself than to the old woman. “For a fat snake, I mean.”_

_The smell of pipe tobacco surrounded Louise, pulling her back down to the porch from the clouds._

_“On his good days, you bet,” said the old woman._

_“And on the bad ones?”_

_The old woman blew out a plume of smoke and thought hard about how to say what she wanted to say to Louise._

_“Snakes are a lot like people, Louise. There's good and bad in 'em. See, they're down there on the ground all the time in the grass and the dirt, with the other little crawlers. It's rough down there. That's enough to make anyone a little bit cruel. But they keep watch, too. They can be protectors. They have both those qualities.”_

_“Dualism,” Louise whispered, thinking back on her favorite concept from language arts._

_“Uh huh. People are the same, Louise. Every last one of us is capable of great cruelty and great kindness.”_

_She held Louise's hand._

_“I don't ever want for you to forget that, my girl. And I don't ever want for you to be afraid of it, either. 'Cause some day you'll find someone that needs for you to pull them out of the grass, to show them the light. And you'll need them, too. To protect you.”_

_“But Gran, what about when I'm in the grass?”_

_She squeezed her granddaughter's hand in response._

_“Then you'll keep each other company.”_


End file.
